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The Real and Fake Wife in the Hotel
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
Two in the morning. The cold light of my phone screen slid across my face and left a strange bright streak behind it. On the other end of the line, my buddy Hunter Reed's voice came fast and low. "Bor...
Chương (4)
第1章
01
Two in the morning. The cold light of my phone screen slid across my face and left a strange bright streak behind it.
On the other end of the line, my buddy Hunter Reed's voice came fast and low. "Boris Fox, I think I just saw your wife. She went into the Hilton with some guy."
On reflex I turned my head. Beside me, my wife, Linda Pruitt, was breathing slow and even, sound asleep.
She'd gotten home from working late less than two hours ago, exhaustion still sitting between her brows, the kind that wouldn't smooth away.
I dropped my voice and spoke into the phone, calm. "You saw wrong. Send me the address and room number."
"No, Boris, listen to me, I really didn't see wrong!" Hunter was so worked up he practically jumped out of his skin. "That figure, that way she walks like she owns the place, and that cream Chanel suit. I'd know it if you burned it to ash. Isn't that the same power outfit you were bragging about last month, the one you bought your wife?"
I didn't answer right away. I looked back at Linda beside me. She was curled quietly under the covers like a small cat with all its guard down, her long hair spread like seaweed across half the pillow. I could even catch the clean scent of the ginger shampoo I'd picked out for her. Everything was so real, so peaceful.
"She was in meetings all day today, just got back, so wiped out she fell asleep before she even finished her bath." I kept my voice as steady as I could. "You've definitely got the wrong person."
"No way!" Hunter's voice was flat certain. "I'm telling you, I even saw the car. Parked right outside their hotel, that white Porsche Panamera. I made a point of checking the plate. You think I'd get that wrong? I stood there wondering why your wife would be running off to a hotel this late."
……
That string of letters and numbers hit my brain like a little hammer. That car was our third anniversary gift, and I'd pulled a lot of strings to land that exact plate. It meant a great deal to both of us.
"She's wearing that suit today, yeah, but she's right here next to me. In her pajamas." I couldn't keep a thread of confusion out of my voice now.
"In her pajamas? Next to you?" Hunter sounded just as lost. "Boris, you sure you're not sleepwalking? Pinch yourself, maybe? I watched with my own eyes, a woman who looks exactly like your wife went into room 1708 with some pretty boy!"
My heart dropped hard.
I eased myself out of bed, bare feet on the cold wood floor. I didn't turn on any lights. By the moonlight coming through the window I walked to the living room. At the entryway, on the brass hook we kept just for keys, a set of car keys sat quietly. The Porsche crest still stood out clearly in the dark.
The keys were here.
I took out my phone and opened an app called Porsche Connect. Password, fingerprint, and the interface loaded. I drew in a breath and tapped Vehicle Location.
The map on the screen zoomed, a small white arrow blinked, then locked precisely onto one point. Under the point ran a line of small text: Hilton Hotel — Underground Parking, Level B2.
For a second I felt all the blood in my body rush to my head. The room spun.
It made no sense. The keys were in my hand, but the car was at a hotel twenty miles away.
"Boris? Boris? You still there? Damn it, don't scare me!" Hunter's voice came out of the earpiece and pulled me back out of the shock.
"I'm fine." I braced a hand against the wall and steadied myself. "You're sure it was room 1708?"
"Dead sure. The guy swiped the key card."
"Okay." I hung up and immediately dialed another number, the property security office at my garage.
"Hi, is this Alex Finch? This is Mr. Fox, Building 1, unit 1801. Can you do me a favor and check when my wife's white Porsche left the garage tonight?"
Alex clearly hadn't gone to bed, and he had an answer fast. "Hello, Mr. Fox. I pulled the footage for you. Your wife's car went out around 11:45 tonight. She was driving it herself. The guy at our booth even said hello to her."
11:45?
But Linda didn't get home until 12:30. When she came in, I helped her out of her heels, she was almost collapsing, complaining that the meeting had just wrapped and she'd rushed home without even a sip of water. The times didn't line up at all.
One contradiction after another wrapped around me like a huge net, pulling tight. I trusted my wife. I knew everything she'd poured into this home, into her career. She wasn't the kind of person who would betray her family.
But the facts in front of me stung like poison barbs, one after another, until I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't just sit here and wait.
I turned back into the bedroom and looked at Linda asleep on the bed, and a fierce urge to protect her rose up in me. Whatever was happening out there, the first thing I had to do was keep her safe. From the study I dug out a tiny camera I'd bought earlier, meant for the nursery, and carefully set it behind an ornament on the bookshelf, aimed straight at the bed. By the time I finished, my palms were slick with cold sweat.
I wasn't suspecting her. I was guarding against that unknown, uncanny "third party."
Finally, I picked up my own car keys. I didn't spare another glance at that extra set of Porsche keys on the hook. I pulled the door shut softly and walked out into the bottomless dark of the night.
第2章
02
I pushed the car hard down the empty beltway at midnight. The city's neon streaked past the windows, stretching into long, blurred bands of light, exactly like the mess of my own thoughts.
I called Hunter back and told him to wait for me in the hotel lobby, and not to make a single move.
"Boris, you're something else. This calm?" Hunter clicked his tongue on the other end. "If it were me, I'd have already grabbed a knife and charged up there."
"And what good would that do?" My voice came out unusually rough. "If the woman up there really is her, and I charge in, this family is finished. And if it isn't her, then it's even more complicated. I need the truth, not to blow off steam."
"Fair enough." Hunter went quiet for a moment, then asked carefully, "Boris, be straight with me. How likely do you really think this is? I mean, your wife... is there any chance she..."
"There's no chance." I cut him off, my tone leaving no room for argument.
Linda and I were college classmates. We went from a campus romance to the altar, and there were almost no secrets between us. What kind of person she was, I knew better than anyone. She was proud, driven, fiercely ambitious about her career, but her loyalty in love and her sense of responsibility to this family were carved into her bones. She could go three days and nights without closing her eyes for a project, but she would never make a mess of things with another man. That would stain her pride.
"Then this is a real ghost story," Hunter muttered. "What, is it a clone? Some high-tech face swap? Even novels wouldn't dare write this these days."
"Stop letting your mind run wild." I said it, but inside I was even more of a wreck than he was.
Who was the man? Hunter had said "pretty boy," and my thoughts went straight to the new executive assistant Linda had hired two weeks ago, Xavier Chavez. Elite university, young and capable, and honestly a sharp-looking guy. More than once lately, Linda had praised him to me, saying he was quick on his feet, had drive, the most useful assistant she'd ever had.
Could it be...
I didn't dare follow that thought. Jealousy and suspicion are poison. Once they touch you, they eat away every bit of reason and trust. Until I saw solid proof, I couldn't condemn anyone out of thin air, not Linda, and not Xavier.
The car quickly reached downtown. The Hilton's signature blue logo stood out sharply against the night.
I parked at an inconspicuous spot along the curb instead of driving straight into the garage. I needed to meet Hunter first and get the fuller picture from him.
Hunter was crouched by the flowerbed at the hotel entrance, smoking, a scatter of cigarette butts already on the ground at his feet. The moment he saw my car, he stood and hurried over.
"You finally made it!" He pulled the door open and dropped into the passenger seat, a thick cloud of smoke spreading through the car at once.
"Tell me everything again, exactly." I handed him a bottle of water.
Hunter took a few gulps and steadied himself a little. "It was around eleven thirty, I was grabbing a late-night bite around here. Just as I was about to leave, I saw your wife's white Panamera pull up. Car stops, and first a guy gets out, the pretty boy I told you about. He walks around to the passenger side and opens the door, real gentleman."
"Then I see a woman in a cream skirt suit get out. There were a few dozen yards between us, but I knew her the second I saw her. That was absolutely your wife. After she got out, she seemed a little tired, even put a hand on the door to steady herself. The guy went to help her, and she slipped away from him, smooth, like she didn't even want to make a thing of it."
"She pulled away from him?" I caught the detail.
"Yeah, pulled away. Then she walked straight for the hotel doors, and the guy locked the car in a hurry and followed her, carrying a briefcase. The whole time the two of them barely said a word, but the guy acted really... how do I put it, respectful toward her? Almost scared of her, even." Hunter worked hard to find the words.
That wasn't how a couple sneaking out for an affair would act.
"Something felt off to me right away, so I went in after them. I watched them get on the elevator, and the display stopped at the seventeenth floor. Then I called you." Hunter finished and looked at me. "Boris, this whole thing reeks of something wrong. I keep getting the feeling that your wife... no, that woman, she didn't seem to be there by choice."
Not by choice? The guess made my heart skip a beat.
"Don't jump to conclusions yet." I killed the engine and pushed the door open. "Come on. Let's go check that car in the garage first."
Whether the woman was real or fake, the car was real. Right now it was the only lead we had. If there was a dashcam in it, maybe it could piece some of the truth back together.
第3章
03
Hunter and I took the staff elevator and slipped down into the second underground parking level without a sound. The air in the B2 section was thicker than up top, pipes crisscrossing overhead with a low, steady hum, like the breathing of some sleeping giant.
"Space 137. Over there." Hunter pointed, keeping his voice down.
We stayed low, moving from car to car for cover, closing in slowly. My heart was pounding, my palms slick with sweat. This didn't feel like catching a cheating spouse. It felt more like an agent slipping behind enemy lines.
And then, there it was. The familiar white Porsche.
The body of the car gave off a hard, cold gleam under the dim lights, and it burned my eyes to look at it. I circled around to the driver's side, pulled the spare key from my pocket, and hit unlock.
Two beeps. The lights flashed, and the door popped open.
Hunter and I looked at each other, and I saw the same shock in his eyes that was in mine. This car really did open with my key. It was the one from home.
I climbed fast into the driver's seat, and Hunter dropped into the passenger side. A faint trace of perfume still lingered inside, that "No Man's Land Rose" Linda loved best, but under it was a stranger's cologne. A man's.
I didn't have time to sit with that. I had one goal only. The dashcam.
I reached up above the center console for it, and my hand closed on nothing. Where the dashcam should have been mounted, there was only a bare bracket and a snapped length of cable.
"Damn it," I cursed under my breath. Someone had pulled the dashcam's memory card. They'd clearly come prepared, and they'd thought it all through.
"Easy. Check the rest of the car," Hunter said.
We split up and searched. The glove box, the center armrest bin, the storage slots under the seats. Every place a person might hide something, we went through all of it, and came up empty. The car was clean as if it had just rolled off the line. Except for that faint ghost of perfume, there was nothing personal, nothing to tie it to its owner.
That wasn't right. Linda was sharp and capable, but she still had a woman's little habits. There were always snacks in the car, a spare pair of flats, a few business magazines. Now all of it was gone.
The car was like a stage someone had deliberately swept clean of every trace.
"Let's go. There's nothing in here." A deep helplessness settled over me. The only hope left was in that room upstairs.
We came back up to ground level and took a different guest elevator. The polished mirror inside threw back my worn, darkened face. Hunter stood behind me and clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Boris, whatever happens, I've got your back."
I nodded and said nothing.
The elevator stopped on the seventeenth floor. The doors opened and a wave of expensive fragrance rolled over us. The hallway was laid with thick, sound-absorbing carpet that swallowed every footstep. We found Room 1708. The door was shut.
Just then, we saw a delivery guy step off the elevator and head straight our way. In his hand was a plastic bag stamped with a 24-hour convenience store logo.
He walked up to 1708 and pressed the bell.
Hunter and I ducked into the fire stairwell beside it, keeping just half a head out to watch.
The door soon cracked open, and a man's voice came through. "Just leave it by the door."
The delivery guy seemed hesitant. "Sir, you've got some items in here that need refrigeration, and, um, this one too. Better to check it face to face."
The man inside went quiet for a few seconds, like he was annoyed, but he opened the door anyway. The moment it swung wide, I saw him. Xavier. Just as I'd thought.
Xavier took the bag, signed for it, and shut the door. The delivery guy turned and left.
Once he was well down the hall, Hunter came out of the stairwell, walked quickly up to 1708, and picked up the store receipt Xavier had tossed carelessly into the trash bin.
He glanced at it, then handed it to me, his face going very dark.
I took it, and what was on it made my pupils shrink hard.
Red Bull energy drink x 4
Dove chocolate bar x 1
Durex Ultra Thin x 1
Time of purchase: half an hour ago.
In that moment, every scrap of reason and restraint I'd held onto came right to the edge of breaking. Whoever that woman was, whatever scheme lay behind all this, the contents of that delivery bag had already pointed this whole thing in the filthiest, most unbearable direction.
"Son of a bitch." Hunter slammed his fist into the wall. "The two of them, disgusting."
I gripped the receipt hard, the edges crumpling in my fingers. My chest heaved, a searing rage shooting up from the soles of my feet clear to the top of my skull.
"Boris, keep it together." Seeing the state of me, Hunter was the one trying to calm me down. "So what now? Just kick the door in?"
I closed my eyes and pulled in a few deep breaths, forcing myself calm. No. I couldn't act on impulse. Kicking the door in would only tip them off and get me nothing. I needed a plan with no holes in it.
A bold idea took shape in my mind.
"Hunter." I opened my eyes, something resolute flashing through them. "Do me a favor."
第4章
04
"Room service, sir." I stood outside 1708 and knocked twice. I'd tuned my voice down to something humble and mild, the smooth register of a trained hotel attendant. Hunter, following my orders, was tucked behind the corner at the end of the hall, in the camera's blind spot.
"Didn't you just bring stuff up? What now?" Xavier's voice came through the door, thick with irritation.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you, sir." I kept the professional tone. "It's just that the colleague who delivered your meal reported a mistake on your bill. I've come to confirm it with you and swap in a fresh complimentary champagne. The error's on us. Please bear with me."
I was betting he'd never actually looked at that so-called bill, and betting he couldn't resist a small freebie like complimentary champagne. More than that, framing it as our mistake would drop his guard as far as anything could.
Silence behind the door. I caught the faint shift of footsteps. He seemed to be weighing it.
"Just leave it by the door. I'll grab it later." Still not opening up.
"Sir, I really can't do that." I let just the right amount of trouble and worry into my voice. "My manager's downstairs. If he finds out I left a comp bottle sitting outside the door, there goes my bonus this month. One minute of your time. I'll swap it out, you sign, and I'm gone."
I painted myself as a pitiful working stiff, the kind who gets pushed around. For a self-important elite like Xavier, that gap in status would give him a comfortable, looking-down sense of ease.
Sure enough, a dozen or so seconds later, the lock gave a soft click.
The door opened a crack, and Xavier's face appeared. Still in that bathrobe, hair still beaded with water, eyes full of suspicion and impatience.
"Make it quick!" he snapped.
"Right away, sir." I answered while pretending to dig something out of my pocket. The instant his attention locked onto me, I flicked a glance at Hunter around the corner.
The next second Hunter came off the wall like a tiger let loose, charging from the corner. All that bulk and momentum drove straight into the barely latched door.
Bang! One massive crash, and the solid wood door was slammed open, the panel smacking into Xavier's face and body. He shrieked and flew back like a burst sack, hitting the entryway floor hard.
"Who are you? What do you want?" He clutched his bleeding nose, screaming in terror.
Hunter gave him no chance at all. One stride, and his knee was pinning Xavier's chest, those broad hands wrenching both arms back so he couldn't move an inch.
"Hold still!" Hunter's roar rang through the room.
I didn't spare the howling Xavier a single look. From the moment I crossed the threshold, my whole line of sight had locked onto that rumpled bed.
On it, the blankets were piled in a mess, barely tracing out the shape of a person.
I walked toward it, step by step. The carpet under my feet was so soft, yet every step felt like treading on clouds, weightless and unreal.
I reached the edge of the bed. No shouting like I'd braced for, no hysterical demands. The room was strangely quiet, quiet enough that all I could hear was my own heartbeat and Xavier's broken, muffled groans from the floor.
I put out my hand, fingertips trembling faintly with nerves. I caught one corner of the blanket.
Then I threw it back.
The blanket slid away, and everything on the bed lay exposed in front of me.
My whole body went rigid, as if some spell had frozen me in place.
Lying there was, indeed, a woman. She wore the cream-white skirt suit I knew so well, the hem bunched up from the way she lay, her long calves showing.
That face was exactly Linda's, my wife's. Identical, down to the last detail.
But she wasn't trembling, wasn't wild with fear. She just lay there, still, eyes shut, her face drained of any color, lips slightly parted, like a wax figure sculpted with great care and then stripped of all life. Her hands hung limp at her sides, no reaction at all to the intrusion or the crash of noise.
She looked asleep, but that deathly stillness set my heart pounding harder than any scream could have.
"She... what's wrong with her?" Hunter had seen the bed now too, his voice full of shock and confusion.
I crouched down, my trembling finger reaching for the artery at her neck.
What came back to my fingertip was a pulse, faint but unmistakably there.
She was alive.
But she was unconscious.