Chapter 9: The Alibi

I found the gun in the other pocket.

It was heavier than I expected, and cold, and I held it in both hands.

I was sitting on the end of the bed in his shirt when the door opened.

Enoch stood in the frame with a tray of tea.

He saw the paper on the quilt.

He saw the gun.

He closed the door with his heel and set the tray down very carefully on the sideboard.

"You can shoot," he said. "The safety is the little lever on the left. Push it down."

"Don't help me."

"I'd rather you hit what you aim at."

My hands were shaking.

"This says you took money to kill the man in the corridor," I said. "At ten forty. An hour before I came in."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"I took the job," Enoch said. "I stood at the desk in white gloves and waited for him to come through the lobby at midnight."

The gun went up and down with my breathing.

"You were going to kill him."

"I was going to try. And then the corridor door banged open, and you came through it."

"I came running."

"You came running at me," he said.

"Lucan had already shot him. At eleven fifty-two."

"Why?" My voice came out in a whisper. "Why did you let me kiss you, and call me kept, and keep me alive?"

He didn't answer for a long time.

Rain ticked on the windows.

"Three reasons," he said. "I'll tell you all of them, and then you can decide."

"Go."

"One. The auditor was dead, and the paper in that envelope has my name on it."

"So?"

"So by morning Augustin could tell every family I was the killer. He pays his men to say what he needs."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Hotel Noir: Kiss Me to Survive from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.