“It wouldn’t be in keeping with the age of the hotel,” she retorted. “Mr. Lattimore, nothing in your room was taken or harmed. Mr. Horowitz is obviously a senior citizen with some memory issues. I’m sure you got an unpleasant surprise, but the incident is over, with no one hurt. And no property damage.”

Olivia decided there was more to the woman than she’d imagined. The wind went out of Lattimore’s sails, and he deflated completely after threatening to have Magic Portal find him a room somewhere else, to which Mrs. Whitefield responded, “Good luck with that.”

The hall cleared abruptly.

Lattimore stomped into his room and shut the door, making sure to shoot the dead bolt so that everyone could hear it. Barry guided Shorty downstairs to his own room, with Olivia following at a discreet distance. Finally, Barry emerged from Shorty’s room. He looked frazzled. He did not seem surprised that Olivia was waiting for him. She said, “I came to talk to you.”

“I figured. To what do I owe the honor?”

“I have a business proposition for you.”

“Does it involve vampires in any way?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then I’m all ears.”

Shorty’s room was at the rear of the hall. On their way to the lobby area, Olivia saw Tommy, Mamie, and Suzie playing cards in Tommy’s room with the door virtuously open. “I’ll talk to you all later,” she called. They nodded, barely lifting their heads from their cards.

Barry brought her a can of Coke. Olivia popped the top to be sociable, though carbonated beverages were not her drink of choice.

“You seem to understand old people,” she began, wanting to start on a positive note.

“I understood that I needed to come find out what was happening when I got to Shorty’s apartment in Nevada and found out he’d gone,” Barry said grimly. “As you saw just now, my grandfather has memory glitches. He seems to have managed to cover that up from the people who lured him here. Evidently, he told them that he had no living relatives. The Whitefields were some kind of surprised when I tracked him down.”

“I didn’t know any of that,” Olivia said, after an appreciable pause.

“I know,” he said.

“The other three were brought here the same way, but at least they all knew each other,” Olivia said. “No wonder your grandfather is so disoriented.” He was in a strange land with strange people.

“In all fairness, this is a lot nicer than the apartment he was in,” Barry said. “And someone’s watching him all the time, though maybe not closely enough, as I discovered today. But since no one at all was minding him before, this is still better. But I need to know why he was brought here, who brought him, what they want.”