The F List - Alessandra Torre Page 0,4

center of his forehead.

Shit.

I got off at eleven but stayed an extra fifteen minutes, my feet swinging as I perched on the plastic stool in the night auditor’s cubby and recounted the night. Marla snapped a piece of gum, her expression bored. “Happened before,” she drawled, holding down her finger on the printer’s queue button. “Room 419. Drug overdose. Everybody loves to die in a hotel.”

Did they? I couldn’t think of a worse place to die. Especially not this hotel. We only washed the comforters once a year. We had a horrific cockroach problem, one frequently mentioned on online reviews, and most of the rooms reeked of a sort of spoiled-milk scent.

“Go home,” Marla said, nodding at the clock. “You ain’t getting paid for this crap.”

I stood and remembered James Union’s phone, which I had hidden in the side pocket of my bag. “Alright. See you tomorrow.”

I wouldn’t be back tomorrow, but I didn’t know that yet. I walked out of the front doors and down the side of the building, my flip-flops flapping along the sidewalk, my heels tucked away in the cabinet of the employee break room where they stayed until someone stole or threw them out. I wouldn’t go back to that hotel until three years later, with documentary crews in toe, anxious to catch the humble and macabre root of my fame.

I listened to Ziggy Marley and ate two pop-tarts as I took the short way home, my doors locked and pedal heavy as I passed through the worst part of Hyde Park, then took the hard turn into my neighborhood. I found a parking spot two buildings over and weaved through the cars, brushing crumbs off the front of my uniform as I clutched my bag under one arm and scanned the lot for anyone who might pose a threat.

Everybody didn’t love to die in a hotel. One girl chose the 7-11 just outside of this parking lot. They found her with a Snickers bar in hand, the wrapper half off, a knife in her gut. Her purse was gone, and I didn’t know what she’d had in it, but I watched them tow her car, a decade-old clunker with bald tires, so it couldn’t be much. She’d probably died for the same amount of cash I had stuffed in the front pocket of my cheap blazer.

I made it to my building and jogged up the exterior stairs, realizing on the second flight that I wasn’t sure whether I’d locked my car. I paused, warring over whether to go back and mentally cataloging anything of value in it. My textbooks. A knock-off set of wireless earbuds. My leather jacket, stuffed half-under the front seat. I forged on.

I made it inside and trudged past my roommate, who nodded in greeting, her attention pinned to the TV, where a reality show diva shoveled fries into her mouth and moaned complaints about her hairdresser. I considered sharing the excitement of my night but didn’t have the energy for it. Pulling my door shut, I kicked off my flip flops and took James Union’s phone out of my bag. Curling into the pillows, I scrolled through more of his photos and then his messages, my interest in the dead man growing as I discovered his second family and the fireworks that had erupted that afternoon.

I fell asleep while reading his texts. My hair was unwashed, my makeup and uniform still on, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the scratch-off in my ratty purse was a winner, and I didn’t know that James Union’s second wife was in her minivan, driving over to kill his first wife.

5

#chaching

EMMA

The next morning, I stuffed a spoon heaped with corn flakes into my mouth and stared at my phone, scrolling through the article on James Union’s domino effect of death. Beside me, sat James’s phone, which I had decided to take to the police station as soon as I finished breakfast.

The article was lengthy and riddled with typos, but full of juice. The wife from the lobby had followed the police to the coroner's office to identify James’s body, then visited the Dollar General and purchased an extra-large box of garbage bags, a box of latex gloves, and a cheap knife set.

I’m dense; I realize that. When James Union checked into a hotel room with no luggage, didn’t negotiate the rate, then dropped his phone into the trash can, I should have picked up on it. But how did the Dollar General