The Intruders by Michael Marshall

downstairs and into Amy’s study. Stuck dead center to the flat screen of her computer was a Post-it note with a hotel name written on it. The Malo, that was it.
    All I could hear through the phone was a distant siren. I waited for it to fade.
    “The Hotel Malo,” I said. “Do you know it?”
    “Of course,” he said. “Downtown.”
    “Can you take it there? Can you take the phone to the hotel and hand it in at reception?”
    “Is long way,” the man said.
    “I’m sure. But take it to reception and get them to call the lady down. Her name is Amy Whalen. You got that?”
    He said something that sounded very slightly like Amy’s name. I repeated it another few times and spelled it twice. “Take it there, okay? She’ll pay you. I’ll call her, tell her you’re coming. Yes? Take it to the hotel.”
    “Okay,” he said. “Twenty dollar.”
     

    My heart was still thudding after he’d hung up. At least I knew the score. No reply to my last message because Amy hadn’t heard it, which gave me a time before which she had to have lost the phone. When had that been? Around nine, I thought. Or could be she’d lost it earlier in the day and chosen to wait until she got back to the hotel to fill me in. Either way, she needed a heads-up to deal with this guy, assuming he was on the level. When phones are stolen, the thieves will sometimes call a home number, pretending to be a helpful citizen, in the hope of reassuring the owner that the phone isn’t lost. That way the victim will hold off getting the phone killed at the provider, leaving the perpetrator free to use the hell out of it until the agreed handover time, when he just drops it in the trash. If this guy was using that scam, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it—I wasn’t going to cancel Amy’s phone without talking to her first. The hotel’s number wasn’t on the note, unsurprisingly—we always communicated via cell when she was out of the house, which is how come mine was down as “Home” in her contacts list.
    Ten seconds on the Internet tracked down the Hotel Malo. I called the number and withstood the receptionist’s mandatory welcoming message, which included highlights of the day’s restaurant specials. When he was done, I asked to be put through to Amy Whalen. A faint background rattle of someone typing. Then: “I can’t do that, sir.”
    “She’s not back yet?” I checked the clock. Nearly midnight. Kind of late, however important the client. “Okay. Put me through to voice mail.”
    “No, sir, I meant I have no one here under that name.”
    I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Had I gotten the dates wrong? “What time did she check out?”
    More tapping. When the man spoke again, he sounded circumspect. “I have no record of a reservation being made under that name, sir.”
    “For today?”
    “For the past week.”
    “She’s been in town two days,” I said patiently. “She arrived Tuesday. She’s in town until Friday morning. Tomorrow.”

    The guy said nothing.
    “Could you try ‘Amy Dyer’?”
    I spelled “Dyer” for him. This had been her name before we married, and it was credible that someone in her office might have made a booking for her in that name seven years later. Just about credible.
    Tapping. “No, sir. No Dyer.”
    “Try Kerry, Crane & Hardy. That’s a company name.”
    Tapping. “Nothing for that either, sir.”
    “She never checked in?”
    “Can I help you with anything else this evening?”
    I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. The guy waited a beat, told me the hotel group’s Web URL, and cut the connection.
     
    I took the Post-it from the screen. Amy’s handwriting is extremely legible. You can make out what it says from low-lying space orbits. It said Hotel Malo.
    I dialed the hotel again and got put through to reservations. I rechecked all three names. At the last minute, I remembered to get myself transferred back to the front desk, this time reaching a woman. I told her that