Chapter 6: Teddy

At two in the morning, someone knocked on the door of my suite.

I was awake, sitting up against the pillows with the police report in my lap.

I had not stopped reading it.

"It's open," I said.

Knox came in carrying two paper cups from the hotel's night kitchen.

He wore an undershirt and dark trousers, and his hair stood up on one side.

"I saw your light on from the hall," he said.

"You don't have a light in the hall."

"I own the building. I know when a light's on."

He set a cup on the nightstand and stayed standing.

It was tea, and it was too sweet.

I drank it anyway.

"Tell me about him," I said.

"No."

"Please. Not the crash. Him."

Knox looked at the wall for a long time.

Then he sat in the armchair and put his elbows on his knees.

"Teddy was twenty-six," he said. "He worked nights on my front desk because he said the day shift had too many people who needed things."

"What was he like?"

"Loud. He did voices. He did my voice, badly, to the guests." The corner of Knox's mouth moved. "He'd give strangers his lunch."

"Did he ever give you his?"

"Every Tuesday. I never ate it. He kept bringing it anyway."

He stopped, and I let the silence stay.

My eyes burned.

"The night it happened, he was driving home from work," Knox said. "He called me on the way."

"What did he say?"

"He said he had something to tell me, and he'd do it when he got to my place. He said it wasn't bad."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Massaged My Legs While Marrying Another Woman from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.