Chapter 6 - What the Buttons Remembered
I didn't touch the wires. I stood close enough to see the red lights blink and far enough that Guard Two wouldn't have a reason to lift his gun again.
Mr. Moradi hadn't moved off the edge of the bed. His hands were on his knees, his robe pulled tight. He looked at the open cut in the headboard like it might move.
"You said I don't sleep in it," he said. "You were right."
I nodded. I could hear myself breathing too loud in that marble room.
Guard Two had his phone out. "I'm taking pictures," he said. "Nobody touches anything."
"Good," I said. "Take them straight on first. Then the sides."
He glanced at me. He didn't tell me to shut up, which I took as permission to keep talking.
The lamp on the bedside table threw warm light across the cream fabric. From where I stood, the tufting looked wrong in a way I hadn't let myself name until that minute. I'd made that bed for weeks. I knew how the buttons were supposed to sit.
"Can I show you something?" I asked Mr. Moradi. "Without touching the cut."
He gave one short nod.
I moved to the left side of the headboard, where the fabric was still intact. I held my hand flat, an inch above it. "When I first started in this room, these buttons pulled deep. You could fit your fingertip in beside them. The fabric gave when you pressed it."
Moradi watched my hand.
"Now look at the center," I said. "The two buttons above where your pillow goes. They're tighter. Flatter. The fabric around them doesn't give."
Guard Two stepped closer and took a photo of where I was pointing. The shutter sound was too loud.
"I thought it was new stuffing," I said. "Hotels do that. They plump things up. But when I smoothed the sheet up high last week, I pressed here by accident." I hovered my palm over the middle. "It was stiff. Not like wood. Like something packed in too tight under the padding."
Moradi's jaw tightened. He didn't look surprised. He looked like a man hearing someone else say what he'd been afraid to say.
"The pillow," he said quietly.
I waited.
He rubbed the back of his neck, where the tattoos disappeared under his robe collar. "I kept moving it. Center, side, center. I thought my neck was bad. There was heat. Right behind my head."
Heat. That word hung there.
"Not room heat," he went on. "A spot. I'd lie down and after a minute I'd feel pressure here." He touched the base of his skull. "And a hum. Low. I told myself it was the sconces. The wiring in the wall."
Guard Two lowered his phone for a second. "You heard humming?"
Moradi cut him a look. "I didn't report it."
That was the fear talking. I could see it in the dark circles under his eyes, in the way his shoulders stayed up around his ears even sitting down.
"You stared at it," I said before I could stop myself.
Moradi frowned. "What?"
"The bed. That's why I said what I said." My face went hot. "You haven't been sleeping in this bed. You'd come in and you'd stand there and you'd look at the headboard like —"
I stopped. I didn't want to repeat my own line back to him.
"Like it murdered someone," he finished for me, dry.
I nodded once.
He let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "I wasn't sleeping on the couch because I liked the couch."
"I know," I said.
Guard Two raised his phone again. He leaned in over the cut, careful not to let his sleeve brush the fabric. He took three slow photos of the black boxes and the colored wires inside the yellow padding. Red lights reflected in the camera lens.
"Got the LEDs," he muttered. "Got the wiring. I'm not touching it."
"Don't," Moradi said sharply.
Guard Two stepped back.
I looked again at those two tight buttons. Up close, the thread around them pulled at a different angle than the others, just slightly off. Whoever had opened that headboard had tried to close it the way housekeeping would close it. Neat. Invisible, unless you touched it every day.
"I should've said something sooner," I said. "About the stiffness. I'm sorry."
Moradi shook his head. He stared at the center of the headboard, at the spot where he'd felt the heat. "You made the bed. I slept — tried to sleep — in it. We both felt it."
That landed heavier than I expected. We both felt it.
The sconce on the wall buzzed faintly. Or maybe I imagined it because he'd said the word hum. The gold mirror caught all of us in its corner — me in my black dress and apron, Moradi on the bed, Guard Two with his phone held up like a shield.
"Take one more," I said to Guard Two. "Of the buttons. So we have how it looked before."
He did. Click. The tight center. The looser edge. Proof you could see without opening anything else.
Moradi pressed his palms together, elbows on his knees. He looked exhausted and awake at the same time. "So it's not in my head," he said.
"No, sir," I said. "It's in your bed."
He looked up at me then, and for the first time since I'd pressed my hand to that headboard, his stare wasn't suspicious. It was tired and relieved and angry all at once.
May you like
Guard Two slipped his phone into his pocket and patted it. "Photos are secured."
Outside the bedroom door, something creaked. We all turned. Nothing opened. But the sound reminded me we were still in the same night, still inside the same decision about what to do next.
