came out of the elevator alcove, looked both ways in the hall and found she might already be riding a piece of luck. There was no housekeeping cart in the hallway. It was apparently after VIP turndown service. The only thing in the hall was a room service table topped with a white tablecloth and the detritus of a candlelight dinner, including an empty champagne bottle floating upside down in a silver ice bucket.
She went to her right to find room 2015 but as she first passed by the door to room 2001 she gave it a wide berth, moving all the way to the left side of the hallway and averting her eyes from the door and the memory behind it. She said a silent prayer, calling on Max to be with her tonight.
The hallway was dimly lit by wall sconces to the left of every door. She found rooms 2014 and 2015 directly across from each other near the end of the hallway and the emergency exit. That was a good break. In case something went wrong, the stairs were right there. Cassie knocked on the door of room 2014 and also pushed the glowing button to the left of the door frame. She heard a soft chiming sound from the other side of the door and she waited.
As expected, no one answered the door. She took the card key out of her back pocket again, looked up and down the hall once more, and then used it to open the door.
As she stepped into the room she felt the immediate jangling of adrenaline coursing through her veins. It felt like a flooding river inside her, powerful enough to take anything in its path.
13
CASSIE used an elbow to close the door and turn on the light switch. She dropped quickly to her knees, putting her hat and the gym bag on the floor and then swinging her backpack down in front of her. From the small front pocket of the backpack she took a pair of latex gloves and pulled them on, making sure they were tight around her fingers and short-cut nails.
She quickly removed and untied the rubber satchel that contained her tools. She unrolled it across the carpet and dragged a finger across the tools, making sure she had everything. She then pulled the Polaroid camera out of the gym bag, got up and began a survey of the suite.
It was a VIP accommodation, the kind given to comped guests of the casino. It was one large living room with double doors leading to the bedroom to the right. The furnishings were plush and Cassie knew that in most of the hotels the VIP suites were refurbished annually to keep them looking pristine and their inhabitants thinking they were among the few who got the privileges of the comped.
She became aware of the heavy odor of cigar in the air – Hernandez was helping her without even knowing it. She moved into the bedroom, for it was where she would do all of her work. She flicked on the light, revealing a large room containing a king-size bed, a bureau and a small writing desk in addition to the floor-to-ceiling television cabinet. She noted that the turndown maid had already been in the room. The bedcovers had been folded back neatly and there was a foil-wrapped mint on the pillow next to a morning room service checklist to be hung outside the room on the door handle.
There was an alcove to the right with an open door to the bathroom on one side and a double set of louvered doors on the other. Cassie opened these to reveal a wide and deep closet. This action also revealed that when the doors were opened an interior light automatically went on. Cassie bent down and saw the room safe anchored to the floor, partially obscured beneath a sport coat and several long, flowing shirts Hernandez had placed on hangers.
Before touching anything in the closet, Cassie stepped back, aimed the Polaroid and took a photo of the clothes. She then squatted down and took a second photo of a pair of shoes and a pile of dirty clothes lying on the floor of the closet.
Cassie stepped back into the bedroom and put the developing photos on the bed. She then began photographing the entire bedroom, covering every angle of the room with the remaining eight photos in the Polaroid cartridge.
When she was confident she had thoroughly documented all areas