Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas Page A

all of whom checked her out as she passed. A family of five got out of the elevator as she clambered on, then made their way arguing toward the front door.
    “A series of cameras track her across the lobby. Then she takes the elevator up to the rooftop bar.” She clicked through different windows, marking the woman’s path. The camera in the elevator gave a closer and sharper view of her features than those in the lobby. “Oh you kid! Opal blue eyes, heart-shaped face, bee-stung lips—insert 1930s
Variety
prose here.”
    Grace’s makeup was flawless and made her look older than she was. It gave Veronica a slight pang, imagining the shy child she’d met a decade ago as this chic sophisticate—and then imagining her again as the savaged figure on the hospital bed.
    “Okay, now our young Jean Harlow gets out at the Eagle’s Nest.” Veronica pulled up a different file, showing the Neptune Grand’s rooftop bar. It wasn’t exactly new—it’d been there since Petra Landros’s renovations a few years ago—but it still gave Veronica a chill. The last time she’d been anywhere near the roof of the Neptune Grand, Cassidy Casablancas had been trying to force her to jump off of it at gunpoint.
    Back then, the roof had just been a roof; now, it was a coolly lit pleasure garden with a view of the city below. Clusters of oversized chairs were arranged near the railings so patrons could take in the view. In the center of the rooftop a large open-flame fire pit flickered steadily, surrounded by low, curved benches. The clock in the corner of the screen registered the time as 10:31 p.m. when Grace Manning stepped out of the gleaming brass elevator.
    “She hangs out at the bar for an hour or so,” Veronica said, hitting Fast Forward. The image picked up speed, the bartender—a young woman in a cummerbund and bow tie—darting erratically, like an agitated squirrel, while a handful of patrons zipped in and out. No one talked to Grace except for the bartender. “She has three drinks. She chats a few times with the bartender. Then she gets up at eleven thirty-seven. But instead of going back to the elevator, she goes into the stairwell.”
    Mac leaned over her shoulder, frowning. “Why would she do that? It’s, like, fourteen stories. She’s wearing stilettos.”
    Veronica shook her head. “No idea. But here’s the real question.” She opened up all of the lobby camera files and hit Fast Forward again so they all started to run at once. “Where did she go?”
    They watched the video in silence. The clock in the corner of each screen ran up, minutes slipping by. 11:40. 11:45. 11:50. At midnight, there was a shift change, with several housekeepers and clerks leaving through the service exit. The bar closed down and the handful of stragglers left. After that there was very little movement except for graveyard-shift clerks fidgeting to keep themselves awake, and one or two employees moving up and down the service corridor.
    At just after 5:13 a.m., a parade of sleepy-looking college guys in matching red jackets traipsed through the lobby. Another camera, positioned in the passenger loading area, filmed them outside, climbing groggily onto a charter bus waiting in the valet lane. It was still dark, and drops of rain speckled the camera’s lens. Veronica could just make out the letters on the backs of their coats: PSU BASKETBALL . After they left, no one else came through the lobby until the continental breakfast started up at six.
    At no point did Grace reappear on the cameras.
    She didn’t come out through the stairwell on the ground floor. She didn’t get on or off the elevator. She didn’t pass through the glass double doors at the front, or the service exit in back, or the parking garage.
    “I’ve watched it all the way through to seven a.m.,” Veronica said, looking up at Mac. “That’s when the junk guy found the victim in the empty lot ten miles away. But I don’t see any sign of her leaving through any of