After Telling the Truth in the Hotel Room, Marcus Opened the Suitcase and the Color Immediately Drained from My Face

Marcus opened the suitcase lock, and I immediately realized that I had not come to this room for a romantic evening. Five minutes earlier I had been sitting on the edge of his bed, turning in my hand the small key to my mother’s silver music box. I always carried it with me, as a calming habit.

Room 806, on the top floor of Seattle’s tallest hotel, glittered with the city lights. Rain beat against the windows, while the smell of expensive perfume and cold metal stood on the carpet. Marcus stood before me, thirty-nine years old, the head of a successful company, calm and self-confident.

I had known him for a year. He had never touched me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. He always asked me how I was, let me speak, and looked at me as if every word of mine had value. That was exactly why I wrote to him that evening: “I want only the two of us to be together tonight, if you want that too.”

I received a reply almost immediately.

But now his silence was humming in my ears.

“Are you afraid?” he asked me.

I nodded and squeezed the key more tightly.

“Marcus, I am a virgin. I have never been with a man in my life. I don’t know how I should behave.”

He froze.

He did not smile. He did not embrace me. He simply looked at me for a long time, as if he were searching for an answer in my words.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.

Marcus said calmly:

“Now I am completely certain.”

“About what?”

Instead of answering, he turned toward the suitcase. The suitcase, covered in a dark-blue hard shell, stood by the table. He entered a four-digit code. The lock clicked sharply.

I stood up.

“Marcus, what is happening?”

“Sit down, Lily.”

“No. Tell me what is happening.”

His calm voice frightened me for the first time. He did not even look toward me.

“You are saying the same thing as everyone else — quietly, trustingly, with the hope that someone would protect you.”

“Who is everyone else?”

This time he looked at me. There was no warmth left in his eyes.

“Do not force me to ask you once again.”

The elevator bell sounded in the corridor. I looked toward the door, but Marcus quickly took a step and blocked my way.

“Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Because tonight no one from here will know where you are.”

My heart was beating as if it were trying to escape from my chest. I put my hand into my bag, but I did not touch the phone. My fingers were still searching for that little key. My mother gave it to me two days before her death and told me: “When you are afraid, remember that every locked door has its own key.”

Marcus lifted the suitcase lid.

Inside were several folders, an object wrapped in dark fabric, and a small black device. Women’s names could be read at the corners of the folders.

One of the names was familiar.

That of my former co-worker — Nora.

“What is this?” I barely uttered.

Marcus placed his hand on one of the folders.

“And now, Lily, you must tell me whom you told about coming here this evening.”

I stepped back. My heel caught on the edge of the carpet. Marcus took out the folder and no longer put his hand on the lock to close it. When his fingers moved toward the first page, three heavy blows sounded on the door…

The door shook as if someone wanted to tear it off. Marcus immediately hid the folder and whispered to me:

“If you make a sound, you will never see Nora again.”

My blood froze.

“Is Nora alive?”

“You should not know that.”

There was another knock on the door.

“Service!” a woman’s voice came from the corridor.

Marcus put a finger to his lips, then took a small phone from the suitcase. Several files were visible on the screen. In one, Nora was crying and saying that Marcus would not threaten her if she paid the money.

I held my breath.

“You do this? You film women and blackmail them?”

“I offer them a choice. They destroy their own lives themselves.”

“Where is Nora?”

He smiled at me.

“First tell me who is waiting for you outside.”

Fists fell against the door. Marcus quickly approached me, but I struck the crystal glass standing on the table with my hand. The glass shattered on the floor. His attention scattered for a moment.

At that moment I took the key from my bag and pressed the small recorder lying beside the phone. A red light came on.

Marcus saw it.

Fear appeared on his face for the first time.

“Who are you working with?” he roared.

The door lock sounded, and someone outside said: “Lily, if you can hear me, step back three steps.”

Marcus reached his hand toward me, but it was already too late. The door opened, and the woman standing on the threshold handed Marcus a sheet of paper. He read the first line and whispered:

“This is impossible…”

Investigator Elene stood in the doorway, with two hotel security employees behind her. She held a court warrant in her hand. I stepped back three steps, as she told me, while Marcus clung to the suitcase as if his life were kept inside it.

“Nobody move,” Elene said. “Marcus Hailey, we have a warrant to search the room and your personal belongings.”

“This is a mistake,” he replied. “This woman is my guest.”

“Guests are not usually recorded on secret lists like this,” I told him.

Marcus looked at me. His face became gray.

Elene pointed toward the suitcase.

“Open it.”

“I will do nothing without a lawyer.”

“We have already opened other rooms where we found the same things. If you resist, another charge will be added to the case.”

Marcus slowly opened the suitcase. Inside lay folders, a hidden camera, sedative drugs, women’s personal photographs, and their signed obligations. On each sheet it was written that the woman had to pay Marcus money; otherwise their most intimate recordings would be distributed.

Elene picked up one of the folders.

“Nora Blake. A missing-person complaint six months ago. Now we know why she disappeared.”

Marcus shook his head.

“Nora voluntarily took the money and left.”

“That is your voice,” I told him and played the recording.

His own words sounded in the room: “They destroy their own lives themselves.”

Marcus heard the voice and stepped back. For the first time he realized that all of this had been said in his own voice.

“Who are you?” he asked me.

“A woman who thought she was looking for love. And a woman who wanted to find Nora.”

Then Elene opened the second folder. Inside was my mother’s surname.

My breathing stopped.

“Is this my mother’s case?” I asked.

Elene handed me the sheet.

“Your mother was the only woman who reported pressure against her to the police. She disappeared two days before we were to record her testimony.”

Marcus lost control for the first time.

“She died from an illness!”

“No,” Elene said. “And now we know where to look for her last recording.”

At that moment Elene’s phone rang. She listened, lowered her eyes, and then looked at me.

“Lily, Nora is alive. But she said that a person more dangerous than Marcus is still free…”