The Mistress in the Room novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Eleventh Floor

Fran holds Hannah together in the hotel suite, has Douglas's key removed and learns the woman on the screen once brought a lemon cake to their house. Her doorbell camera shows that woman letting herself into the Evanston house.

Hannah's suite was on the eleventh floor, and the elevator stopped at every floor on the way up.

I stood outside the door with my hand on the wood.

I could hear her through it, crying in short, broken pieces.

I knocked once and went in.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed in her white dress with her shoes off.

Seth knelt on the carpet in front of her, holding both her hands.

"Mom," she said, and her face crumpled all over again.

I sat down beside her and put my arm around her.

She smelled like the roses from the arch.

"It's a prank," she said into my shoulder. "Somebody made it to be mean. Dad would never."

"Hannah," I said.

"He wouldn't, Mom."

I held her until she ran out of breath.

Seth stood up and went to the minibar for water.

His hands shook, and he spilled half of it on the counter.

"I didn't know anything about the last clip," he said to me. "I swear, Mrs. Lindahl. Hannah's friends collected the pictures, and I only filmed my part."

"I know you didn't," I said.

"The last one wasn't a prank," Hannah said, sitting up.

Her eyes were red and very steady.

"I heard the room behind him when he called me that weekend. Music, and people cheering."

"Did you know?" she asked me.

"No."

"Not a hint? Not for a year?"

"He told me you'd be bored there, and I should stay home. I believed him."

She looked at me for a long time.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry I asked."

"Don't be."

"I know her," Hannah said quietly. "Her name is Lydia Reiser. She came to my graduation party and hugged me for a long time."

"Dad introduced her as an old friend from school," Seth said. "She brought a lemon cake."

I remembered the cake.

I had cut it myself and told her it was delicious.

She had thanked me and asked where I kept the good plates.

Seth sat down on her other side, and she leaned against him.

Nobody said anything.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It was Douglas.

Fran, please. Come downstairs. We can fix this.

It buzzed again.

Don't tell Hannah anything until we talk.

I turned the phone over so Hannah couldn't see the screen.

Then I picked it up again and called the front desk.

"This is Fran Lindahl in the eleventh floor suite," I said. "My husband is on the reservation. Please take his name off it. He doesn't get a key."

"Of course, ma'am," said the woman on the line.

She asked no questions.

I thought I might be sick.

Instead, I wrote a text to Douglas with my thumb steady.

I am staying with Hannah tonight. Don't come to the suite. Don't call her.

His answer came in under a minute.

You can't keep me from my own daughter.

I wrote back.

Watch me.

Hannah took the phone out of my hand and read the thread.

She read it twice.

Then she put her face in Seth's chest again, and he looked at me over her hair.

"We'll go home in the morning," I said. "All of us. I'll make eggs."

"Mom, you make eggs when someone dies."

"Then I'll make pancakes."

She laughed once, wet and awful.

It was the best sound I had heard all night.

Seth carried her pillows to the couch and tucked a blanket over her feet.

I took off my pearl earrings, set them on the nightstand and sat by the window.

Down in the street, a limousine pulled away from the hotel entrance with its back door still ajar.

The guests were leaving in clusters.

Somebody filmed the hotel sign.

My phone lit up with the alert from our front door camera.

I had set it up for packages.

The notification said motion at the front door, our house, Evanston.

I opened it with my thumb.

The image showed my porch light and my welcome mat, and a woman in a dark green dress standing on it with one hand under her belly.

She looked straight into the lens.

Then she lifted a key and put it in my lock.

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