“Yeah, I’m a smoker, too, so I know how it is, but I still can’t let you out this door. It’s orders from upstairs.” He rested a hand nonchalantly on the butt of his pistol.

Marie-Thérèse stopped rummaging in her bag. If she tried to shoot him, he’d have a head start. “Oh, well,” she said, “I’d better get back to work. I can have my smoke later.” She turned the cart around and pushed it back the way she had come, looking for another way out. She found another exit, but there was another security guard standing in front of it, and he looked less friendly than the last one. Finally, with nowhere else to go, she went back to the elevator, put her key into the lock, and pressed the button. She’d try another floor.

Carpenter showed her ID to the guard and took the express elevator to the lobby. As she stepped out, Stone and Dino approached.

“She hasn’t come this way,” Stone said. “How’s the search upstairs going?”

“Slowly,” Carpenter replied. “She could have knocked on the door of any room and got herself inside, and it’s a big hotel.”

“Dino,” Stone said, “if you can get a cop or two to watch the elevators, we could work our way up.”

Dino spoke into his radio, and a moment later, two uniformed officers approached. Dino gave them instructions, then turned to Carpenter. “Okay, let’s go upstairs.”

“We’ll take the other elevator, to the lower floors,” Carpenter said, “and just do a sweep of each floor. We won’t knock on every door. We’ll leave that to the search teams and just hope to get lucky.”

Stone and Dino followed her onto an elevator and rode up a floor. They got off and began walking the halls.

Marie-Thérèse got off at the basement level; at least it was closer to the street. But to her surprise, the floor contained staff offices for the hotel. A securty guard down the hallway spotted her and began walking toward her. Quickly, she got back onto the elevator, hoping he didn’t have a key. The ground floor would be crawling with cops, so she pressed three. At least she could walk down quickly from that level.

Carpenter and her two companions completed their patrol of the second floor, and she started toward the stairs.

“No,” Dino said. “If we get into the stairwell, we won’t be able to get out on another floor; we’ll have to walk downstairs, and we just came from there. We’ll have to take the elevator.” He pressed the call button.

“Do you really think she’s still in the hotel?” Stone asked.

“I don’t know,” Carpenter replied, “but it’s the only place we’ve got to look for her at the moment. If she got out of the hotel, she could be anywhere.”