Chapter 9: The Locked Room

Ye-rin took the ring from the floor and did not let it jingle.

She pulled his white shirt on over her bare skin, because it was the nearest thing, and stood for a moment looking at him asleep.

His face in the grey light was younger, with the cold gone out of it.

One hand lay open on the sheet where she had been.

She told herself she was only going to look.

The hall was cold underfoot.

The brass key was stiff, and she had to lean on the door before the lock gave.

It opened inward on a room with no window.

The air smelled of old paper and wax and, faintly, something burned.

She found the switch.

A single lamp came on over a narrow desk, and she saw the walls.

All four were covered with framed photographs, hung in rows, each with a small white card beneath it.

Eleven photographs.

She looked at each one in turn.

A heavyset woman in a laundry smock, laughing.

A bellboy no older than nineteen, in a cap too big for him.

An old man at a reception desk, a cook with a ladle, two girls in housekeeping uniforms with their arms linked.

Under each one was a name and an age and the same date.

November 14, 2002.

Her stomach turned over slowly.

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