Fear and Laundry by Elizabeth Myles

Author:Elizabeth Myles
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-02-20T23:00:00+00:00

Part Three

September 3rd – 17th, 1994

Lauren, the hostess on duty at Alonzo’s, recognized me. I’d figured whoever was working would, but didn’t have time to think of any way around it. I only hoped they’d buy the story I’d concocted on the drive over and not think it worth mentioning to anyone else later on. It had to help, didn’t it, that the Crawford employees were fairly used to seeing me around?

I told Lauren my mother had forgotten something in her office and sent me to pick it up. I was heading to the basement, I said, not explaining who Lia was or why she was with me. The main stairs were being mopped, I lied, and the elevator was busy. I was just going to slip through the kitchen and use the back stairway. I didn’t phrase it as a question, just sort of said it with as much authority as I could muster.

Lauren opened her mouth to say something, but an elderly couple walked up and started asking her questions. She nodded and waved me away, turning her attention to the customers, and I led Lia through the dining room. We jumped out of a server’s path just as he came through the swinging doors with a loaded tray, and then ducked into the kitchen. As usual, the place was so busy hardly anyone noticed us. Only Kyle, the bus boy on duty, waved and said hello.

I weaved Lia through the chaotic kitchen to the stairs and we ran down to the basement, where I left her waiting in a hallway corner. I crept down to the laundry and peeked inside. The room was empty. Alma was probably up on one of the floors, gathering dirty linen from the housekeepers’ carts. I hurried back to my mother’s office and waved Lia over.

“What now?” she asked when she reached me.

I nodded at the door. “We need to get in here.”

“Is it locked?” She jiggled the doorknob and saw it was. “What do we do?”

I held up the key ring again. It held not only my mother's car keys, but the ones to her office as well.

I unlocked the door and we slipped inside. I went to the rack where the new laundry attendants’ uniforms were stored, grabbed two of the plastic-wrapped packets and tossed one at Lia. “Put that on,” I told her.

***

We dressed quickly, pulling the uniform shirts, smocks and pants on over our regular clothes. I stuffed the discarded plastic wrap far into the bottom of Mom’s trash can and walked over to a locked cabinet mounted on the wall.

“What’s that?” asked Lia, tugging uncomfortably at her uniform. She dropped her tape recorder into a smock pocket.

“The housekeepers’ master key cards,” I said. “There’s one for every floor in the hotel.”

“Master keys? That means they open any door, right?”

“Yep.” I used Mom’s keys to unlock the cabinet and took out the fifth floor master. Once I’d locked everything back up, an idea occurred to me and I led Lia into the deserted laundry room, where I wheeled an empty linen cart over to where she stood.

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