Chapter 4: A Name Spoken In The Wrong Room
The service corridor smelled of bleach, hot metal, and coffee that had been left too long on a warming plate. I stood beside the linen cart with one hand braced against its chrome rail, trying to keep the floor from shifting beneath me. The gray sleeves of my uniform were still damp at the cuffs. My apron had been retied, but the knot sat crooked, and the cleaning polish on my cheek had dried into a tight, gritty patch.
Gunther stood several feet away, blocking part of the corridor without appearing to try. In the bedroom, he had been only a silhouette in the dark. Under the service lights, I could see the sharp line of his jaw and the neat darkness of his hair. His navy suit looked untouched by the long night. Mine looked like it had been slept in, which it had.
He held the door open behind him. “You called me Mr. Hill.”
The words did not sound loud, but they traveled down the empty corridor.
I looked at the linen cart. “I was barely awake.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
My mouth went dry. The name had come from somewhere. I could feel it just beyond reach, attached to a hallway, a voice, or a face I had failed to hold onto. I remembered the bed. I remembered moonlight. I remembered apologizing. Nothing connected cleanly.
Gunther waited.
“I may have mistaken you for someone else,” I said.
“For whom?”
Before I could answer, a brass service bell rang at the far end of the corridor. A woman in a black cardigan appeared from the office doorway, carrying a clipboard pressed against her chest. Her silver hair was pinned tightly at the back of her head. She stopped when she saw us.
“Kayla,” she said. “You were assigned to the west sitting room forty minutes ago.”
Her eyes moved over my uniform, then to Gunther, then back to me. The order was written plainly across her face before she spoke again.
“Why weren’t you there?”
I opened my mouth, but the answer caught behind my teeth. The west sitting room had been on my list. I remembered carrying folded towels toward it. After that, there was a blank space, wide and clean as the white carpet beside the bed.
Gunther stepped forward. “She was working overnight.”
The woman’s expression tightened. “That isn’t what I asked.”
“No,” he said. “It’s what you need to know before you write her up for abandoning an assignment.”
The corridor seemed to narrow around us. I recognized the woman then—not her name, only her authority. She was the person who checked every room, every clock, every empty bottle and crooked cushion. Her clipboard held the official version of the night.
She turned it toward me. A column of times ran down the page in blue ink. “You initialed the east hall at 1:10. You were supposed to initial the west sitting room at 1:30. There’s no mark.”
“I don’t remember stopping.”
“That’s the problem.”
Gunther’s gaze shifted to the clipboard. “Give her the rest of the morning.”
The woman looked at him with open irritation. “I don’t take instructions from—”
“She was not in the west sitting room because she was not capable of working safely.”
The sentence landed harder than a report would have. I felt heat crawl up my neck.
The woman studied me again. “Are you saying you were ill?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted a clean explanation, something that would fit in the blank space and make the bed disappear. Instead I saw the charcoal duvet, the enormous pillows, my shoes abandoned beside the nightstand.
Gunther answered before I did. “I’m saying you should record the missed task and leave the rest for later.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “There will be a later.”
“I know,” he said.
She wrote something on the clipboard, tore off the page, and tucked it beneath the metal clip. “Report to the office when called.”
Then she left, her shoes striking the corridor in even, measured steps.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
“You didn’t tell her,” I said.
“Not yet.”
The protection felt less like mercy than borrowed time. I folded my hands to hide their shaking. “Why?”
Gunther looked toward the closed office door. “Because I want to know why you said that name before I decide what it means.”
Mr. Hill.
The name pressed against my memory again. I saw a dark doorway, or thought I did. I heard nothing. No face came with it.
“I’ll find out,” I said.
“From where?”
“The work records. The assignments. Anything that shows where I was before I woke up.”
His expression changed slightly—not approval, exactly, but attention.
I pushed the linen cart toward the records alcove. Each wheel squeaked once before catching. Behind me, Gunther remained in the corridor, silent and close enough to hear if I failed.
At the alcove, I reached for the drawer marked NIGHT LOGS. The office door opened behind us.
May you like
A voice called my name.
I pulled the drawer free.
