Clearly the hotel wasn’t safe, but we had nowhere else to go. We’d have to barricade the door and hope for the best. As we made our way back, Heath shouldered all our bags himself and let me lean on him to take the weight off my injured foot. No matter how slowly and carefully I walked, every limping step ended in pure agony.
The hotel lobby was deserted. The lights flickered as we made our way down the hall, turning the ambience that much more apocalyptic.
We reached our room. Heath dug into his pocket for the key.
“Wait,” I said.
The door was open, a sliver of darkness between the edge and the frame.
Fresh adrenaline flooded my body, washing away the exhaustion. We had closed and locked it before leaving for the venue. Someone had broken in again, and this time they wanted us to know.
“Stay here,” Heath said, but I was already pushing past him, nudging the door open the rest of the way. I threw the light switch, but the burnt-out bulb hadn’t been replaced.
There was enough illumination from the hallway to outline the stain the broken vase had left on the carpet, the shapes of our luggage next to the coatrack in the corner, the crooked stem of the lamp beside the bed—and something else.
A still, dark shadow spread across the mattress. Shaped like a body.
Chapter 76
Red and blue lights flashed over the freezing pavement. I sat on the curb with my knees pulled under my chin and tried not to think about it.
But the smell was all over me. That thick, metallic reek, blended with the aroma of roses.
This time, there had been no flowers. No thorns. Only petals—ripped out and scattered like in a honeymoon suite. My free dance dress was draped over the bed, covered in rose petals.
And soaked through with blood.
Animal blood, the Sochi City Police thought. Maybe cow or pig, from a butcher shop. A tasteless prank, certainly, but no one had been hurt. Nothing had been stolen either. Two officers stood and watched as Heath and I searched every compartment in every piece of luggage; all our possessions were there, undamaged, including Heath’s costume for the free dance. It was a shame about my pretty dress, but couldn’t I wear another one?
We tried to tell them about the rest of it, to explain the pattern, the escalation from the strange flowers to the wounds on the sole of my foot to this horror show in our hotel room. I quickly reached the limit of my patience, but Heath kept appealing in Russian to the cops, the night shift clerk, the hotel security guard, even a few other guests who’d ventured out to see what was causing all the commotion. None of them had witnessed anything suspicious.
“Seriously?” I said when he relayed this to me.
“So they say.”
“And the police, what are they going to—”
“What do you think?”
They weren’t going to do any more than the Olympic officials. Ask a few questions, write up a report, send us on our merry way.
Heath offered his hand to help me up. The pain in my foot thrashed like a live wire, searing the entire left side of my body. A ruined dress was the least of my problems. How the hell was I going to make it through the free dance like this?
“You’d better get some ice on that,” came a voice from behind us.
Ellis Dean stood under a streetlamp, looking uncharacteristically subdued in a black wool overcoat. He ambled toward us, hands in his pockets, casual as can be.
“How are you doing?” he asked. “I heard what happened.”
The Olympics were a glorified small town, and Ellis knew everyone. I was just surprised he’d managed to make it here fast enough to scoop the other media outlets.
“Ellis,” Heath said. “We’ve had a long day.”
“I just wanted to—”
“What, take a picture for your stupid blog?” I said. “Maybe a whole fucking slide show? Sorry I don’t have blood all over my face, I bet that would make the header imagereallypop.”
Ellis sighed and slipped something out of his pocket: a small black plastic card. Heath and I both looked at it like it might bite.
