Hotel Nigh

Chapter 13

Last Drink of the Night

It took a few moments for Danny's words to truly sink in.

Then impulsively, I shot up off the dingy bar stool and began darting out the room, ignoring Danny's hollers of, "Come back! I'm on my own up here! You can't leave me to just talk to Rose all night!" But his voice was a distant hum in my head as I took two stairs at a time to get to the second floor. After all, Rose was a delight to be in company with.

I was hammering my fist on Melina's room when I was standing outside and raising my voice so she could clearly hear me say, "It's Jason," and she knew I would mean no harm to her. She opened the door a few moments later, flummoxed as she let me enter. I suppose if I hadn't have shouted my name, she perhaps would have been either exceedingly reluctant to open the door, or wouldn't at all.

"I was speaking to Danny and Rose," I began, and filled her in on everything befuddling and speculative about Rose's discussion I had with her before meeting Danny again in the bar. Then I progressed onto what he'd last said to me about Jenson Rogers. "Jenson Rogers was the name Danny said in the basement. He told us he was dead, and Kimberly came here to see her grandson. She had no idea he was dead. Unless she made that up too..."

Her face was a concoction of expressions: sadness (from Kimberly being prevented from meeting her grandson and/or not knowing he was dead) and relief (that we finally know where we've heard Jenson's name). She frowned. "That means someone told Kimberly to come here like they did with you. Someone played her into thinking her grandson was still alive and they lied to her. For what? Just to kill her? Right?"

Melina fell back into the chair at the table where the puzzle was still completed, and the message was staring at us. I tried not to think about it as Melina and I were talking, because I didn't want to seem predictable to a killer who could kill me in mere moments because I wasn't as experienced as Melina was in martial arts.

"Not to kill her originally," I declared, having thought about it whilst blocking out the message on the puzzle. "I think they wanted information out of her first, and when she had either told them everything she knew or told them nothing, she was killed. She knew too much by that point, I guess. She knew who the murderer was."

"You know we need to go back into that basement and really look at everything, right? We need a lot more time than we did last time."

"I know. But how are we supposed to do it? Rose is clocking off soon and presumably so is Mr. Perry... Danny is needed behind the bar, and I haven't seen Elliot since he was with Danny after Kimberly's body was found. Speaking of him, I've barely seen him since I've been in this hotel. The only times I've seen him was when I first met you and when Kimberly's body was found."

"Elliot's a decent guy. He knows a lot about his tools. When I was waiting in the lobby on the sofas one day for the doors to open for lunch, he was showing me his collection in his bag. He seems quite proud of them, to be honest. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, Jason."

My lips curved into a smirk, though there was an unidentifiable feeling in the pit of my stomach. "You know he's got a thing for you then, don't you?"

She waved a hand about in front of my face. "Change of subject please."

Chuckling I said, "Let's go down to the bar and speak to Danny. We'll see what he can do, but I doubt anything is going to happen tonight considering Mr. Perry will most likely be in the back behind the hotel desk."

Melina sighed, but she agreed nonetheless so together we were ambling back to the bar. Once we made it to my floor, I asked her, "What did you do whilst you were in your room?"

She shrugged. "I was just on my laptop replying to a few emails from my boss. He just wanted to know what my progress was."

"A bit late for that, isn't it?"

"Well he sent the email at three in the afternoon, so if anyone is late, it's me." She smiled teasingly at me and we made it to the bar together where Danny was mixing up some sort of drink. "What's in that?"

Danny jumped violently and turned to face the cause of his startle. He relaxed once he realised it was Melina and I and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?" Then he winked. "And what was all that about? You were running off from me. Do you know how lonely it gets working in this bar pretty much every night, Jason? Give me some company. Barely anyone visits me here as it is, and with a murderer on the loose, you can bet your sorry ass no one will join me at all now."

"I had to quickly tell Melina about Jenson Rogers and him being dead and Kimberly being lied to considering she had said to Rose that she came to this hotel to visit her grandson. She had no idea he was dead; that must be it."

Our conversation was terminated short when the man in the wheelchair rolled into the bar and glanced up at the bottles of beers and whiskeys that were proudly displayed on a shelf behind Danny who moved out of the way so Miles Woodley could get a better view. "Just a normal whiskey please," he ordered, holding out his change and placing it on the very edge of the bar. He couldn't reach any further, so I pushed the money forwards towards Danny who was busying himself with Miles' drink.

"It's been a stressful day," Miles declared, having thanked me beforehand, taking the drink off Danny who reached over the bar to give it to him. "I think this is well deserved. Hope you three are having a nice evening, despite the previous occurrences." He must still be able to walk given when it was required, but perhaps it pained his body too much to walk too frequently and utilise his legs.

We all muttered a mixture of, "It's all right," and "it's going okay," and "it absolutely blows." And there's only one guess who the one was being so blunt about his evening considering he had been doing nothing but reminding Melina and I that he was lonely in this bar.

Miles chuckled. "Well this is going to help me sleep tonight definitely." Then he took a large swig of his drink and heaved a strained sigh.

Knowing our conversation was no longer safe to talk about, we let Miles begin to talk about whatever he wanted which consisted of the ever-lasting storm (still no thunder or lightning) and Kimberly's recent passing. Us three shared a glance between us which I knew translated to don't tell him what we know. Neither one of us elaborated much on Kimberly except the known facts that she was a nice, old lady who didn't deserve to die like that.

It was as if Miles could sense the sombre mood, because he didn't order another whiskey and instead wheeled out towards the elevator after bidding us all a goodnight and to stay safe. As soon as the door closed, Danny collapsed over the bar and sighed annoyingly loudly. Melina contorted her face in pure repulsion and swatted him away from her. I think he leaned that way purposefully, but Melina was an attractive girl so I didn't really blame him.

"How long are you working for?" I asked him. "Tonight, I mean."

"I clock off at one in the morning," he said regretfully, "but sometimes Mr. Perry lets me knock off early if I've done an extra good job that day. Or if it's really dead like now."

Glancing at the clock in the corner of the wall, I whistled lowly. "You've got a few more hours until you can clock off." It had just surpassed ten, and it was getting late, and I was growing tired. "So I think I'll go up to bed."

Melina caught my drift and said, "Yeah, me too."

Curiously glancing between us, Danny said, "You both going together?" He seemed somewhat vexed by the fact we were going to bed at the same time and unnaturally aggressive with his question. "You got a room together?"

"Of course we haven't," said Melina. "But it's getting late and we're both going to go to our own rooms so we can sleep."

Evidently irked over this, Danny just muttered a, "Goodnight," to us and we left the bar just like that. I had a feeling that he'd be in his cheery mood tomorrow morning as per.

"So," I said as we approached the stairs to go up to the first floor where I'd have to leave her, "are we actually going to our own rooms or sharing a bed tonight?"

Melina nudged my ribs.