Hotel Nigh

Chapter 15

The Second Death

Melina and I lingered in the lobby after breakfast on the sofas, watching everyone come down for their meal and greeting them. It wasn't until people were beginning to make their way back upstairs did we decide to join them.

On the first floor, Rose was emerging out of DARK which was Gerald's room, fondling the bed sheets as she attempted to roll it together to drop into a hamper on a trolley. I knew distinctly that it was a cleaner's trolley, and Rose was cleaning Gerald's room. "Hey, Rose," I said to her which caught her attention and she startled, nearly causing her to let go of the bed sheets.

"You scared me," she joked, chuckling uneasily. "Have you just finished with breakfast?"

"We finished a while ago," I said. "I didn't know you were the maid. Who's doing the breakfast then?"

She smiled as she aggressively rolled up the bed sheet and dropped it into the hamper on the cleaning trolley. "I didn't used to be until last year. The maid quit and Mr. Perry couldn't afford to hire someone new at the time and carry out an interview process. He asked me how I was at cleaning and I said I'd try my hardest. Breakfast isn't a hard meal to cook, so Elliot and Danny are both helping for it, but I get everything sorted for them before I start the cleaning rounds."

"My mum used to be a maid in a hotel," Melina spoke up, smiling. "She loved going into the different rooms and trying to figure out the type of person or people who occupied the room from what state they left it in for her to clean."

Rose's smile became more natural now and the unease was ebbing away. "Your mum sounds wise. I think I might try doing that now."

"Have you done my room?"

"Not yet," she said to me. "I'm running a little late today because I've had to sort Kimberly's room out and considering the circumstances, it took a lot longer to clean. The blood isn't coming out in the carpet as easily as I'd hoped, so we might just have to refurbish that room as well as the one upstairs. Yours is the last room, Jason."

"That's okay. We'll be up in my room anyway," Melina said. "It was nice seeing you."

"You too. I'll definitely try and figure out what Jason is like from his room. Is the bed messy?" she asked.

Unwillingly, Melina blushed from the side of me and I could feel the heat rising up to my cheeks. From what was meant to be an innocent question from Rose turned into something exceedingly awkward because I began spluttering, "Uhm, well, no, well yes, but you know. The normal."

Rose caught onto something and said, "Your secret is safe with me." Then she winked and submerged back into Gerald's room.

"That was awkward," Melina muttered as we began hurriedly strolling away upstairs.

We said nothing else until Melina inserted her key card into the lock and entered her room. Then I broached the subject and said, "Are we going to ignore what happened last night?" I felt a little rude and blunt from phrasing it like that, but I'd said it now and there was no going back.

Melina shrugged nonchalantly. "We've barely known one another for a whole day. We just slept next to one another."

Deciding it was better to leave the subject at that, I said, "Okay." But I wanted one more question answering, and I never got the chance.

It was like déjà vu with Kimberly. There was a blood-curdling scream and moments later it was silent. But this time it wasn't just a scream, because there was also a gunshot that rung out through the hotel. It was almost like an echo as I could still hear it parroting through my head only getting quieter each time.