Chapter 5: What Sarah Found on the Server
I woke at five-thirty the next morning, the way I always do, and made coffee from the suite's small machine while the Gulf turned from black to gray to pale gold outside the windows.
At six, my phone rang.
Sarah.
"Mrs.
Montgomery, I'm sorry to call so early.
I thought you should know before the day started."
I set down my cup.
"Tell me."
"I reviewed the lobby footage last night.
The way you asked me to be aware of it." A pause.
"There's something else on the recording.
From earlier in the afternoon, about forty minutes before you arrived.
A man came in and spoke with Amber privately, near the east corridor.
They didn't check in.
He left before your family arrived."
"Did you get his name?"
"He used the house phone in the corridor to call a room.
The call log shows the number he dialed.
It belongs to a reservation made two days ago under the name Derek Calloway.
He's booked into a junior suite through the end of the week."
I stood up and walked to the window.
"Is he still here?"
"His key card was last used at eleven-fifteen last night.
He's here."
I watched a pelican cross the waterline below, slow and unhurried.
"Sarah, I want the corridor footage from yesterday afternoon preserved separately.
Don't delete anything.
Don't discuss it with the other staff."
"Already done."
"Thank you." I paused.
"Send me Derek Calloway's reservation details when you get a moment.
Quietly."
"Yes, ma'am."
I ended the call and stood for a long time with my coffee going cold in my hand.
I thought about the way Amber had laughed on the terrace.
The easy, open laugh.
The relaxed shoulders.
The hand resting on the railing like she had nowhere else she'd rather be.
I thought about the years she and Mark had been married.
Five years of short answers and cool smiles at my dinner table.
Five years of holidays where she checked her phone under the tablecloth and excused herself to take calls in the hallway.
I had always told myself I was imagining it.
That I was a mother being too protective of her son.
That Amber was simply a private person who hadn't found a way to include me.
The reservation had been made two days ago.
Amber had known about this trip for three weeks.
I got dressed, chose sensible shoes, and went downstairs.
The lobby was quiet at that hour.
One young man at the front desk who nodded respectfully as I passed.
A cleaner moving a cart along the east corridor without making a sound.
I didn't go toward Derek Calloway's room.
I had no interest in a confrontation in a hallway at six in the morning.
Instead I went to my small office behind the main reception area — the one only senior staff knew existed — unlocked it with my personal key, and sat down at the desk.
Sarah had already sent the file.
Derek Calloway.
Forty-one years old.
A business address in Atlanta listed under a consulting firm with a website that was one page long and three years out of date.
I looked at the check-in photograph from the reservation.
He was not a stranger.
I had seen him before.
Once, at Mark and Amber's house, two Christmases ago.
He'd been introduced as a colleague of Amber's from a previous job.
He'd shaken my hand and said it was wonderful to finally meet me.
His grip had been firm and practiced.
I closed the file and sat quietly for a moment.
Then I picked up the phone and called my attorney in Atlanta.
He answered on the third ring, alert despite the hour, because Gerald had been my attorney for nineteen years and he had long since learned that early calls from me were not accidents.
"Eleanor.
What do you need?"
"I need you to look into a man named Derek Calloway.
Atlanta-based consulting.
I want to know everything that's findable inside twenty-four hours."
"Is this personal or business?"
"Both," I said.
"Possibly."
A brief pause.
"I'll start this morning."
"Thank you, Gerald."
I unlocked my office door and stepped back into the corridor.
Mark was standing at the end of it.
He had his hands in his pockets and his hair was still slightly unsettled from sleep.
He'd come looking for me — I could tell by the way he stopped when he saw me, the small involuntary relief that crossed his face before he controlled it.
"You're up early," he said.
"I usually am."
He glanced at the office door I had just come out of.
"Is that yours?"
"It is."
He nodded slowly.
He didn't ask what I'd been doing.
Something in his face told me he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"I thought maybe we could have breakfast," he said.
"Just us.
Before Amber wakes up."
I studied my son.
The careful way he'd said *before Amber wakes up.*
May you like
"All right," I said.
"Let's have breakfast."
