Our room door is closed and locked, and I use my key card to get in.
I fling open the door to find Anna alone, searching for Taylor.
“Do you have her?” she yells. “Is she with you?”
“No. She was here just a few minutes ago when I checked on y’all.”
“I woke up to find her gone.”
I turn to Roderick. “Can you and Haskins cover the doors to make sure nobody leaves while we look for her inside?”
“Yeah,” he says, turning to leave immediately. “I’ll call for backup. As soon as they get here I’ll be back in to help search the house.”
He starts running toward the stairs but I call after him.
He pauses and turns back toward me.
Behind me, Anna is calling out for Taylor and continuing to search the room.
“Check the security camera feeds first,” I say. “Make sure she hasn’t already been taken from the house. You can still see the front door from the check-in desk where they are, so you can watch it and scan the footage at the same time.”
“Got it,” he says, and takes off again.
When I turn back toward Anna, she is on her hands and knees looking under the bed.
I rush into the bathroom and look around, opening the cabinet doors under the sink and pulling back the shower curtain.
I run back into the room and open the door to the small closet. I then pull up the top of the unzipped suitcase on the aluminum luggage rack, and as I do a thought tries to form but is quickly gone.
“I’ve already looked in there,” Anna says. “I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not here.”
“I’m just double-checking,” I say. “I’m gonna go over every inch of the house this way.”
“I can’t believe you let this happen,” she says.
I don’t respond. Instead, I open and look inside each drawer of the dresser.
As I do, my phone vibrates. I pull it out and see that it’s Roderick and answer it.
“Somebody disabled the recorder,” he says. “The cameras are still hooked up but they haven’t been recording since earlier tonight. We have no way of knowing if she’s already out of the house or not.”
I slam my hand down on the dresser as expletives explode from my mouth.
“I’ve got roadblocks being set up on the three roads out of here and backup should be here in about two more minutes. Everybody down here wants to help. Keith called his mom and she is headed back, but he hasn’t been able to get Henrique yet. Everyone is down here with me except you, Anna, and Haskins, who is on the back door.”
“And Hal Raphael,” I say, stepping to the landing and looking at his door. “Who even with all the screams and commotion hasn’t even opened his door to see what’s going on?”
I step across the landing and begin banging on Raphael’s door.
After getting no response from calling for him and beating on the door, I step back and kick it near the handle.
I could run downstairs and get a key from Keith, but not only do I not want to waste that much time, if Raphael has his door bolted it wouldn’t do any good anyway.
At the first kick the door gives a little and begins to splinter, but it is not until the third one that the door swings open and slams into the wall behind it.
The room is dark and cool, and I can hear heavy snoring.
I flip on the lights and see that Raphael appears sound asleep in his bed. I do a quick sweep of the room to ensure no one else is in here, then try to wake him up.
No amount of shaking him does any good, but as I yell for him to wake up while slapping his face some, he begins to rouse.
His eyes open a little then close again. Several times.
He’s either extremely groggy or an immensely talented actor.
It takes a little while and some water from the tap, but I manage to wake him and get him to sit up.
“What . . . What’s going on? What is it?”
I tell him and ask him where Taylor is.
“Huh?” he says. “Who?”
“My daughter,” I say. “The little girl in the room across the hallway.”
“I . . . I have no idea. I took a sleeping pill and have been asleep since my head hit the pillow—just a few moments after coming into my room. I have no idea what’s happening. I . . . I can’t . . . even hold my eyes open.”