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The circulation in Beth’s ear pumped against the screen of her iPhone. She took one pace to the door. “Who is it?” She waited, expecting the receptionist’s cheery response. None came.
“Mrs Jordan?” the officer’s tiny voice said as she lowered the handset and let it hang beside her.
“Who is it?” she repeated.
Still no reply.
Beth returned the phone to her face and whispered. “There’s somebody at my hotel room door and they’re not answering me.” She walked backwards in the direction of the bathroom.
The officer seemed as suddenly breathless as Beth. “OK, try not to panic.” It sounded like he was calming himself more than her. “It’s unlikely he would have been able to locate you.”
She thought about how he’d reserved the table in the restaurant using her number. Was he tracking her phone? Beth had just been using it. “What should I do?” She wondered how old the officer was. He sounded as if he’d scarcely started shaving.
“Stay on this line. Do you have a phone in your room?”
“Yes.”
“OK – use it to call reception.”
But she knew that if it wasn’t the receptionist at the door, she was probably away from the desk buying her sandwich. Beth had given whoever was outside the perfect opportunity to enter the hotel. Taking her eyes briefly off the panel to locate the phone next to the bed, she then whipped her gaze back to the inch of wood that separated her from somebody who was very possibly the Beachfront Butcher. “Please stay on the phone...”
“Of course, tell me what’s going on. Can you do that for me, Mrs Jordan?”
She was too scared to be irked by his sudden reversion to whatever script he’d been taught to use.
“Is the door locked?”
“I think so.”
“I have a situation here.” He was addressing someone nearby. “Mrs Jordan, you’re staying at the Francisquito?”
“Yes.”
“An officer’s on their way now.”
“An officer’s on their way now? She repeated loud enough for the person standing outside to hear. “Thank you.”
“Mrs Jordan, are you calling reception?”
Beth put his voice in her robe pocket, gently lifted the handset of the bedside phone and gingerly pressed the button to dial down.
“Reception?” Beth recognised the woman’s voice. “Don’t worry. Dinner’s on its way up.”
“Wait.” But the receptionist had hung up.
Even though no obvious gunshot or explosion preceded it, the door cracked and burst. Beth instinctively crouched as varnished splinters blasted into the room. There was a large hole where the lock mechanism used to be, and the handle was now barely attached. She heard several loud thuds as someone kicked at it.
Beth quickly fled to the bathroom, slammed the door, locked it and immediately turned to the tiny window over the bath. There was no way she could fit through it. Footsteps pounded across the bedroom floor.
“Beth Jordan.” The pacific voice said from the other side of the door.
“Get the fuck away from me! The police are on their way!”
Beth knew the handle of this door could be just as easily obliterated.
“You coming out? Mh?” he asked, as if he were a father addressing a moody teenager.
“And let you kill me.”
“We can do it out here or in there. Your decision.”
His casual pragmatism was terrifying. “Why are you doing this?”
“I wish I had a few moments to explain. I tried earlier tonight, but you’ll understand time is something of an issue now.”
The handle exploded and the door started juddering violently in its frame.
Beth looked around for a weapon. Just plastic bottles and tubes unpacked from her bag on the sink. She swept a vase of dried flowers off the top of the toilet tank. She gripped the heavy lid of the cistern with both hands and lifted it off, just as the door burst open and slammed against the opposite wall.
Beth swung the lid in the direction of the doorway and its impetus slid it through her fingers. Its brief ascent coincided with her attacker’s entrance, its edge striking him hard below his earlobe. As it thudded to the tiles, the man staggered against the wall and slid down it, hands at his neck and body shrinking into the pain.
Beth stayed crouched where she was, momentarily alarmed by the injury she may have caused him. But the sight of the gun still clutched in his hand shook away any doubts he meant to take her life. A silencer was attached to the barrel. She considered trying to wrestle it from his grip while he was still stunned, but she didn’t want to touch it or him, and took advantage of the gap between his body and the doorframe.
She angled herself past him, crossed the room and was out through the shattered doorway onto the landing. The receptionist was coming the other way, carrying a plastic tray containing a covered sandwich, her brief smile halting at Beth’s obvious alarm.
“Run!” Beth shoved her back towards the elevator, the tray and food flying from her hand. “He’s got a gun!”
The receptionist could see the panic in her eyes and didn’t argue. She turned and fled, already a few paces in front of Beth and running as fast as she could in her sarong and cork heels.
Beth felt her bare foot connect with something soft and wet. The elevator doors had not yet closed but had started to. She anticipated a bullet in her spine as she pumped her legs towards the shrinking aperture. She didn’t dare turn back. Perhaps he was still stunned. Beth focused on the buttons beside the elevator, willing the receptionist to reach them in time. Then she heard the sound of movement behind them, the thud of heavier footfalls.
“Help us!” Beth yelled at the other hotel room doors as they passed them. None of them opened.
The receptionist reached the elevator doors as they closed, and slammed the heel of her hand at the button. The doors parted and Beth followed her inside. She turned and they both panted as they waited for the doors to finish opening, the sound of footsteps slapping nearer. The receptionist banged her fist at the shut button.
The doors began their slow journey back to the middle, a barrier between them and harm gradually sealing itself. The receptionist flattened herself against the left buttons in an attempt to shield herself at the side of the doors from anyone who might appear at the shrinking gap. She turned and hissed, “Get on the floor.”
Beth slid down the wall and pushed her body into the corner of the elevator. They both waited as the footsteps reached them. Beth closed her eyes and screamed, thinking only of the tiny life that would die inside her.
Time, the elevator, and Beth’s stomach hovered uncertainly before they plunged.
As they settled in reception a few seconds later, there was no time for relief. The gunman would be now taking the stairway down to intercept them. Beth opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet, waiting for the doors to part so they could sprint for the front entrance and raise the alarm on the street. As they began opening, she turned to the receptionist.
She was leaning against the buttons, braided henna coil over one eye. Beth could see the extinguished light in the other eye before she noticed the bullet hole punched through the centre of the receptionist’s chest.
