The Hotel Nantucket

Wanda wasn’t in her bed, she said. “Have you seen Wanda?” Kimber practically screamed. “Have you seen her?”

“I haven’t,” Lizbet said. She did a sweep of the lobby, checking Wanda’s favorite reading chair and under the piano, where (inexplicably) Wanda sometimes liked to read, then said, “Let me look in the break room.” (The allure of the soft-serve machine was strong; Lizbet had to fight it herself each and every day.)

But the break room was empty.

Lizbet enlisted Raoul’s help—he would search the hotel, floor by floor. Kimber asked if it might be possible for her to let Doug out of their suite. She was certain he would lead them right to Wanda. Lizbet hesitated; the last thing she wanted was a pit bull roaming the halls of the hotel. But Lizbet sensed the urgency—an eight-year-old child was missing at ten fifteen at night—so she okayed it.

Raoul called up from the wellness center: no Wanda. “I thought she might be in the yoga room,” Raoul said. “That fountain is mesmerizing.” He was now moving to the first floor.

“Check all the unoccupied rooms, please,” Lizbet said. There were twenty-one empty rooms and six empty suites (Lizbet felt each vacancy like a pinhole in her heart). “Maybe she found a way in.”

Lizbet tried to think like Wanda. She seemed fascinated by the other guests, so Lizbet poked her head into the only populated area of the hotel, the Blue Bar—and wow! The place was popping. The bar was three-deep, every seat was occupied, the copper disco ball had dropped, and a group of people were dancing to “Tainted Love” in the space in front of the penny wall. Lizbet surveyed the crowd at hip level and tried to peer under tables. There was no sign of Wanda anywhere, though Lizbet spied plenty of people drinking flame-red cocktails, the Heartbreaker.

When Lizbet got back to the desk, a round, middle-aged woman wearing glasses with dark, square frames and a fanny pack around her waist—she looked like an aging version of Velma from Scooby-Doo—was standing at the desk.

“Finally!” she huffed.

“I’m so sorry,” Lizbet said. “You must be Ms. Yates?”

“I arrived over five minutes ago and you’re the first person I’ve seen!”

Lizbet returned to her spot behind her computer just as Raoul came rushing down the corridor, saying, “I’m headed up to the second floor.”

Lizbet gave Raoul the thumbs-up; she was afraid if she spoke, she would lose her cool. A child missing in the hotel, she thought. Or not in the hotel. When was the right time to call the police?

“I’ll need a form of ID and your credit card, please, Ms. Yates.”

Franny Yates pulled both a Pennsylvania driver’s license and a Mastercard out of her fanny pack.

“You’re certainly traveling light,” Lizbet said.

“My luggage is down on the sidewalk!” Franny said. “It’s far too heavy for me to carry up the stairs. Silly me, I thought a hotel that costs as much as this one does might actually have a bellman!”

“We do have a bellman,” Lizbet said. “Right now, he’s assisting another guest. I’m happy to fetch your luggage.”

“You won’t be able to get it up the stairs,” Franny said.

Lizbet winked at Franny. “You haven’t seen me with kettlebells.” But when Lizbet went to the hotel’s entrance and looked down the staircase, she saw three black suitcases that were each big enough to contain a dead body. Franny Yates was staying at the hotel for only three nights. What could she possibly have packed?

Lizbet returned to the desk. “My apologies—you were absolutely correct. We’ll have to wait for Raoul.”

“How long will he be?” Franny asked, checking her phone. “I’d like to get to bed.”

“Of course,” Lizbet said. Just then, Raoul called. “She’s not on the second floor, and Kimber says she and Doug checked the third floor and she’s not there either. I’ll sweep the fourth floor. You’ve checked the pools, yes?”

“Pools?” Lizbet said. She started to tremble. “No…”

“Oh, man,” Raoul said.

Lizbet hung up. She held prayer hands up to Franny. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

“But my room number? My key? My luggage is still on the sidewalk. What if someone takes it?”

“This is Nantucket,” Lizbet said. “No one is going to touch it and it’s too big for anyone to walk away with. I’ll get your keys as soon as…” But Lizbet didn’t finish the sentence. She hurried out the pool door, praying she wasn’t going to see the small form of Wanda Marsh floating facedown. Both children could swim, she reminded herself. She hit the pool lights. No Wanda. She exhaled—but there was still the adult pool on the lower level and the hot tub. She recalled that Wanda was intensely curious about the Mystery of the Hot Tub, because it was restricted to people fourteen and older. Lizbet raced back through the lobby, passing Franny Yates, who had plopped herself cross-legged on the floor in front of the desk, which Lizbet understood was some kind of statement or protest, because there were armchairs and ottomans less than five feet away. “Be right—” Lizbet said. She ran down the stairs, through the wellness center, and out the door. The adult pool was dark and quiet.

“Wanda?” Lizbet whispered. She peered into the hot tub, feeling very much like the doomed heroine in a horror film.

It was empty.

Lizbet headed back upstairs, thinking she had dodged a huge bullet—Wanda hadn’t drowned in the pools. Though Lizbet was growing more and more agitated. Where was she?

“Let me get your keys,” Lizbet said to Franny Yates. “I’ll upgrade you to a suite because you’ve been so patient. Here you go. Suite two fourteen. You can take either the stairs or the elevator to the second floor, and then it’s all the way down the hall to the left.”

“What about my luggage?” Franny Yates said.

“As soon as the bellman is free, I’ll have him bring it to you.”

“I want to go to sleep!”

“Ms. Yates, I need to ask for your indulgence. We have a situation here—”

“Your situation is that your hotel stinks,” Franny Yates said. She marched off down the hall.

Lizbet wasn’t sure what to do. Should she try to schlep Franny Yates’s luggage up the stairs herself? Should she go up to the fourth floor to help look for Wanda? Should she call the police? A child is lost. Lizbet wasn’t a mother but she understood how serious this was. Lizbet went down the stairs to the street and looked both ways. No Wanda.

She heard the phone ringing back in the lobby and she hustled up the stairs, taking them two at a time, so when she reached the top, her heart was pounding in her ears. “Hello?”

“We found her,” Raoul said. “She was wandering around the fourth floor.”

“Oh, thank God.” Lizbet paused. “What was she doing there?” The fourth floor had odd roof angles and very small windows, and the Historic District Commission would have had to approve any structural changes that would be visible from the street, so Xavier had opted not to renovate it just yet. Lizbet had ventured up to the fourth floor only once; it was, essentially, a cavernous and dusty attic.

Raoul said, “She said she was looking for the ghost.”

The ghost! Lizbet thought. She had been very careful never to mention the supposed ghost to anyone, and especially not Wanda, but Zeke might have let it slip.

“We have a checkin to suite two fourteen who is very anxious for her bags. There are three of them, and I would deliver them myself but they’re each the size of a small home.”

“I’ll be down as soon as I’m finished cleaning up here.”

“Cleaning up?” Lizbet said.

“Doug was so excited to see Wanda that he had an accident.”

Lizbet closed her eyes. The other line of the hotel phone rang. It was suite 214. “You have to get suite two fourteen her luggage. Please, Raoul. Right now.”

“But the dog—”

“Raoul, please!”

“Yes, boss,” Raoul said.

Lizbet answered the other line. “Your luggage is on its way, Ms. Yates.”

“You’re a liar!” Franny Yates yelled. “I can see my luggage from my window. It’s still on the sidewalk!”