I’ll wait until 7:00 a.m. to check out. 7:07 a.m., if I could manage it. I couldn’t afford to look suspicious. After all, who checks out of a five-star hotel at the crack of dawn unless it’s some sort of emergency? I didn’t want to draw attention to myself now. I couldn’t leave anything up to chance.

I busied myself by giving the room a once-over—making sure I hadn’t left my charger plugged in and forgotten, or left anything hanging behind the bathroom door. There was a T-shirt in a plastic shopping bag that I kept near my purse, waiting to be thrown out on the taxi ride home. It was always better to be safe. I sat down, phone in hand, watching the numbers on the clock tick their way toward when I could leave.

The rap on my door came at 6:51 a.m., ricocheting through my quiet room, lodging itself deep in my heart.

Who would knock on my door now?

It didn’t make any sense.

I hesitated a moment.

The second rap sounded more urgent.

“Miss Bloom, this is Alistair Ferdinand, the hotel manager. Sorry to disturb you. Could we have a moment, please?”

The manager?

Well, at least it wasn’t the police. They’d come later. I hoped to be gone by then.

I took another deep breath and cracked open the door.

“Yes?” I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. I knew it even before he said anything. I could feel it in my bones—the writhing. The inherent sense that things were about to go very, very wrong.

“Miss Bloom, my apologies for this, but we have to search your room.”

“Search my room?”

But he was pushed aside by someone as she barreled her way inside.

“Where is she?” Her voice was shrill.

“Tehani? What are you doing here? What’s going on?” My voice was a whimper. An embarrassing contrast against hers.

“Oh fuck off, like you don’t know.”

“I—I don’t understand.” I swallowed. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The manager stepped in. “We have been instructed to search all rooms immediately. It appears that one of our guests has gone missing.”

“What? Who?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“I’m not at liberty to say right now, madam. We just need to check your room.”

It felt like all the breath had been knocked out of me. This was really happening.

The manager was accompanied by two security guards. Let them look. She certainly wasn’t in here. It took just less than a minute of them going through my room to confirm.

I glanced at the time, just to make sure. 6:53 a.m. Nothing lucky about that. My chest tightened.

“As you can see, I’m alone in here. But please, let me know if I can help.” I sounded far away—like my voice was disconnected from the rest of my body.

“You can help by telling us the truth, you bitch.” Tehani’s voice slapped me back to reality. She was holding up the T-shirt I’d been meaning to throw away—a basic white tee with the words Pink Sapphires emblazoned across the chest in sparkly letters.