Heart Song Anthology by Carolyn Faulkner (summer reads txt) 📗

am completely lost. I forgot my key in the room and I can’t remember what room it is.” Cora provided an explanation as to why she wasn’t leading the woman back to her room.

“Oh, then let me look you up,” the woman said patiently, and started to turn towards the front desk.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what name the reservation is under. My husband’s company sent us here for his work and it’s under his boss’s name.”

Greta nodded as if this was perfectly normal to her. “Okay, okay. We get you figured out.”

The woman, with a hobble of her own, ushered Cora towards the front desk. Setting the shopping bags in front of it, she circled the large marble counter and sat down with a long sigh of relief. “Now, I am needing the name under the reservation.”

“I’m so sorry,” Cora repeated, her brow furrowing to show her absolute mortification. “I don’t have it. Oh! But I do have a picture!”

She dug into her purse hooked in her arm as if this idea had just dawned on her. She had zoomed in on his profile through the footage she had captured, trying to correct the pixilation had been a chore, but it looked clear enough to hold out to the front desk attendant. “This is his boss; do you know him?”

Realization flashed in the woman’s expression and a sly smile spread across her features before evaporating just as quickly. “No, I sorry but I never seen this man.”

Cora quirked an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Greta leaned forward as if to study the picture, and Cora almost jumped when a young boy maybe five or six ducked out from beneath the counter and looked at the picture too, gasping. “Mormor!” he exclaimed excitedly, tugging at the woman’s sleeve. “Mormor!” He extended his arm forward, curling his small hand into a fist and pulling his other arm back by his ear as if he were shooting a bow. He then uncurled the fist by his ear and made an explosion noise with his mouth.

Greta, ignoring this, looked up at Cora and smiled. “Never seen him before.”

Cora withdrew her phone, slowly and suspiciously. Greta definitely knew who he was, and it was sketchy that she was lying. And Cora knew sketchy, after all she was trying to hand Greta a surveillance photo.

After a few moments of staring at Greta, Cora finally plastered on her most confused smile and asked, “What am I to do then? I don’t know the name or the room number.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Greta said pleasantly, politely dismissing her.

But Cora’s eyes shifted to the still excited child. “Do you know this man?” Cora asked gently.

“He knows nothing,” Greta interjected.

“I’m asking him,” Cora said sweetly.

“Yeah!” he said excitedly. “He wears that hat and shoots balloons!”

“Oh, does he?” Cora chuckled, unsure as to what that meant, but excited that he recognized the man from such a vague picture. “Do you know where he’s staying?”

“Upstairs!”

“Can you show me?”

Greta’s polite customer service smile was gone as she glowered at Cora. “Come back tomorrow and we will show you.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow.”

Cora’s mind spun. Evidence tampering? That was the only reason she could deduce that they would want her to return the next day. “That’s impossible, where am I to stay for tonight?”

“Tomorrow,” Greta grumbled more insistently, and Cora watched her hand gravitate towards the phone likely to call security.

With a strong harrumph, Cora grabbed up her bags and began to hobble towards the entrance with a dramatic groan and several mumbled “I can’t believe this,” comments. Once outside, she circled around the building in her same hobble until she was down the street and in a back alley where she could safely drop the ruse, and the heavy shopping bags.

“Plan B,” she said to herself, letting down her hair so it flowed long around her shoulders. She removed her fake glasses and fake belly, depositing both into the trash, and headed back to the hotel to find the employee entrance.

While she waited for a maid to come out of the side door so she could see their uniform and security measures, Cora just stood with a cigarette between her fingers, watching it burn. She didn’t smoke, but an employee on a smoke break was a good enough reason to be standing behind the building.

It had taken some time for her to find the employee entrance as it was tucked discretely on the back end of the building, which was so tightly flanked by other buildings it was difficult for her to circle the extravagant architecture to discover where employees came and went.

She might have missed it if a server for a restaurant inside hadn’t come out for a smoke break. Cora had made quick contact and bummed one off of her to look as if she belonged. She waited and watched until the flame on her borrowed cigarette has reached the stage where she needed to either chuck it or allow her fingers to burn with it, when a young woman approached the door with a copper-brown dress slung over one of her arms. Traditional maid attire.

Cora dropped the spent cigarette and approached as the woman punched in a code, not paying enough attention to cover her moving fingers, so Cora was able to make out the numbers used. 2-2-3-8, which were also the most faded numbers on the electronic lock.

Cora allowed the door to close behind the woman, counted to twenty, then punched in the same code and voila! She had gained entry to the bowels of the fancy hotel. Unlike the front entrance hall, this entrance was quite plain with wear in the carpet from the large amounts of foot traffic coming to and from throughout the day. It took only a few moments of carefully exploring to find the breakroom where lockers lined one wall, none with locks in place.

Cora almost shook her head at that. The Danish were trusting people, making her job of finding a suitable