Mystery On An Island Getaway

Lena tapped at the keyboard. “You’re in the Seabird Wing. Room 214. Two nights, prepaid. Breakfast included, sunset cruise booked for tomorrow.”

“Perfect.”

“Could I see the card on file?”

Mara reached into her handbag and pulled out her wallet. The lobby’s polished counter reflected her face in a wavering strip: travel-creased, hair flattened from the ferry wind, eyes still bright with anticipation.

Lena handed back the passport and slid a white keycard across the counter.

“Second floor,” she said. “The elevator is just beyond the lounge. If it gives you trouble, use the stairs. It has opinions.”

Mara picked up the card. A small blue lighthouse was printed on it beneath the resort’s name.

“Good to know.”

“And this is your welcome envelope.” Lena passed over a cream-colored packet sealed with a gold sticker. “Wi-Fi password, map, dining hours. The usual.”

Mara tucked it into her handbag. “Thank you.”

She turned toward the lounge, pulling her suitcase behind her.

The elevator doors opened before she reached them.

A man stepped out.

He was perhaps forty, perhaps older; the low light made it difficult to tell. His linen shirt was damp at the collar, and a thin silver watch hugged his wrist. He stopped when he saw Mara, not quite blocking her path, but close enough that she had to angle her suitcase around him.

His gaze dropped to the keycard in her hand.

“Room 214?” he asked.

Mara’s fingers tightened around the card. “Yes.”

The man looked past her toward the reception desk. Lena was already speaking to a couple who had just entered the lobby.

“You should ask for another room,” he said.

The words were quiet. Not a suggestion. A warning.

Mara glanced at the elevator behind him. “Why?”

He seemed to reconsider answering. His eyes moved over her shoulder again, checking the lobby.

“Because that card isn’t yours.”

A chill moved across Mara’s arms despite the warm room. “It was just given to me.”

“Then it was swapped.”

“By whom?”

The man’s mouth tightened. He stepped aside as the couple approached, their rolling bags bumping over the floorboards.

“Don’t sleep in 214,” he said.

Then he walked toward the side exit, passing beneath a framed photograph of the island in summer. Mara watched him push through the door and disappear into the dark beyond the veranda.

“Mara?” Lena called. “Everything all right?”

Mara turned. Lena was watching her now.

“Who was that?”

“Who?”

“The man who just left.”

Lena looked toward the side exit. A beat passed before she smiled again. “Probably a guest.”

“He knew my room number.”

“Guests notice things.” Lena’s fingers settled over the keyboard. “Is there a problem with 214?”

Mara raised the keycard. “He said this card was swapped.”

Lena’s expression did not change, but the clicking fan seemed suddenly louder.

“That’s odd,” she said.

“Is it?”

“Not usually.”

“Usually isn’t what I asked.”

The couple at the desk shifted closer. Lena lowered her voice.

“Mr. Vale may have been confused.”

“Who is Mr. Vale?”

Lena’s eyes flicked toward the door. “I didn’t say that was his name.”

Mara felt the first clean edge of unease. She placed both hands on the suitcase handle.

“Can you check whether this card belongs to my room?”

“Of course.”

Lena took the card. She turned it over, examined the magnetic strip, and inserted it into the small reader beside the computer. The machine gave a soft electronic chirp.

Lena stared at the screen.

“What?” Mara asked.

“Nothing.”

“That didn’t look like nothing.”

Lena removed the card and tried again. This time the reader flashed red.

“Your system says it’s invalid,” Mara said.

“It may not have encoded properly.”

“Then why did you give it to me?”

Lena glanced at the couple. “I’ll make a new one.”

She reached beneath the desk, pulled out a blank card, and fed it into a small encoder. The machine hummed. Mara watched Lena’s hands. They were steady, but her thumb rubbed once across the edge of the card before she placed it on the counter.

“Try this.”

Mara took it. “You’re not coming up?”

“The desk can’t be left unattended.”

“Then send someone.”

Lena’s smile thinned. “There’s no need to make this dramatic.”

“I’m not making it dramatic. A stranger just told me my room card was swapped.”

“And I’m telling you the card was incorrectly encoded. Those things happen.”

“Do they?”

A bell chimed from the elevator. Nobody stepped out.

Lena leaned forward. “Ms. Whitlock, Harborlight is full tonight. If there were a problem with your reservation, I would know about it.”

Mara looked past her at the darkened hallway leading toward the rooms. The resort brochure had shown white balconies, blue water, and a woman in a sunhat holding a glass of wine. Nothing in the photographs had suggested locked doors or men who knew her room before she had seen it.

She slid the new card into her pocket.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll check it myself.”

The elevator carried her upward with a judder that made the ceiling light flicker. Mara stood alone inside, listening to the cables groan. On the second floor, the doors opened onto a narrow corridor lined with faded blue carpet.

The Seabird Wing was quieter than the lobby. Too quiet. There were no voices behind the doors, no televisions, no plumbing. Only the distant percussion of the sea against the island’s western rocks.

Mara followed the brass numbers.

209.

211.

213.

The corridor ended at a blank wall.

She stopped.

Room 214 should have been opposite 213, but there was no door there. Instead, a service corridor opened to the left, blocked by a velvet rope and a sign that read STAFF ONLY.

Mara checked the map in her handbag. She unfolded it beneath the buzzing wall sconce. The Seabird Wing was drawn as a straight line of rooms, 201 through 218. Room 214 was marked with a small balcony symbol.

She looked back toward the elevator.

“Very funny,” she muttered.

A door clicked somewhere behind her.

Mara turned.

The door to 213 had opened a few inches. An elderly woman peered through the gap, one hand gripping the chain.

“Are you looking for someone?” she asked.

“Room 214.”

The woman’s face tightened.

“There isn’t one.”

“It’s on the resort map.”

“There used to be.”

“What does that mean?”

The woman glanced down the corridor, then opened the door another inch. “They sealed it after the storm.”

“What storm?”

But the woman was already closing the door.

“Wait.” Mara stepped toward her. “Why would the front desk assign it to me?”

The chain slid free. The door shut.

Mara stood beneath the flickering light, her suitcase beside her and the replacement keycard warm in her palm.

At the end of the corridor, a green EXIT sign glowed above another door. Beside it, nearly hidden by a tall plant in a chipped pot, was a narrow brass plaque.

214.

Mara moved toward it.

The door was flush with the wall, painted the same dull blue as the corridor. No balcony. No peephole. No visible handle except a black electronic lock.

She held up the card.

The lock flashed red.

She tried again.

Red.

Behind her, the elevator bell chimed.

Mara turned sharply. The doors opened, empty.

A moment later, footsteps sounded from the stairwell.

Slow. Measured.

She looked at the locked door, then at the elevator. The footsteps stopped below, out of sight.

Mara pressed the card to the lock a third time.

The light turned green.

The latch released with a heavy mechanical clunk.

She pushed the door open.

Inside was not a guest room but a short, unlit passage that smelled of dust and wet wood. At the far end, another door stood ajar. A strip of warm light spilled across the floor.

Mara heard someone moving beyond it.

She should have gone back. She knew that with the same certainty she knew the ferry had already left and the lobby staff would not help her. Instead, she stepped inside and pulled the door nearly closed behind her.

The footsteps in the stairwell reached the corridor.

Mara crossed the passage.

The second door opened into a room.

Her room.

The bed was made. Her suitcase had been placed beside the dresser. A glass of water waited on the nightstand, though she had not asked for one. The balcony doors stood open to the dark sea, and the curtains lifted and fell in the night wind.

For several seconds, nothing moved.

Then Mara saw the envelope.

It lay beneath the edge of the lamp, cream paper against the dark wood. Her name was not on it.

The handwriting was narrow and deliberate.

ELIAS VALE.

Mara’s mouth went dry.

She picked it up. The envelope had been opened and resealed, the gold sticker pressed crookedly over the flap. Beneath the name, in smaller letters, someone had written:

DO NOT LET THEM TAKE YOU ON THE CRUISE.

A floorboard creaked in the passage behind her.

Mara turned, clutching the envelope.

The door to the hidden corridor was closed.

She crossed the room and locked the main door. Then she stood with her back against it, listening.

Nothing.

Only the sea. Only the fan. Only the faint, uneven click of the ceiling mechanism.

Mara looked down at the envelope again. Elias Vale. The man in the linen shirt. The stranger who had known her room number.

She opened the flap.

Inside was a single folded sheet of paper and a small brass key.

The paper carried one sentence.

Mara unfolded it beneath the lamp.

If they give you my room, they already know what you found.

Outside, somewhere beyond the balcony, a boat engine started in the darkness.

End of chapter one. 14 more chapters in the full book.