Last night’s wild race down twenty-one flights of stairs fleeing from a false fire alarm had left Paige Reimer shaken. All she wanted was to get back inside her hotel room.

The detective assigned to protect her slid the key card into the lock and she reached for the door handle.

“Stop.” Detective Noah Daugherty held out his hand. “Let me check the room.”

“Sorry,” she said over her shoulder. “Gotta pee.” She pushed by him, only to freeze after three steps.

A scream echoed through the air and it took a moment to realize it came from her.

Paige’s knees buckled and she grabbed the wall as Noah rushed past. A tiny portion of her brain registered that he clutched a gun the size of her favorite Kate Spade bag, waving it from one side of the room to the other.

And all she’d been worried about was hiding the box of tampons she’d left sitting on her pillow.

Instead, displayed prominently on the ivory comforter of the enormous, multi-pillowed bed, was a single rose. Not even a red rose. A black one. With the stem broken near the top so the blossom hung to one side like a broken neck.

Bile threatened to pour out of her and she stumbled toward the bathroom before she collapsed completely.

“Wait.” Noah’s voice sounded behind her, a distant echo from the bottom of a deep well. “I need to check for intruders before you go in there.”

But she couldn’t stop. Besides, it wasn’t necessary. She could feel the stillness in the air. No one else was in the room.

Whoever had been here was long gone.

She stretched one leg behind her and kicked the door shut. This was humiliating enough without him watching her hug the commode like a Saturday night drunk.

When nothing was left of any meal in recent memory, she lay back on the cool tile, trying to douse the heat that spread over her entire body. How long could she stay here? Would he leave if she just didn’t come out?

A hesitant tap sounded on the closed door. “Paige, are you alright?”

Guess not.

“Five minutes. Just give me five minutes, okay?”

The carpet was too thick to hear footsteps, yet she felt him move away.

She counted to sixty slowly, then again, and one more time, before pushing herself off the floor. Two minutes left to make herself presentable. She brushed her teeth and splashed cold water on her face, then brushed her teeth again, but the foul taste remained.

Her hands shook and her knees were as week as if she’d run a 10K. Uphill. In July.

Every emotion in the dictionary swirled around her and she couldn’t pick just one to settle on. Fear. Anger. Humiliation. Denial. Each seemed the most dominate until the next took over. But exhaustion trumped them all.

One swipe of powder and a dash of lipstick. That was the most she could manage.

Hand on the door knob, she took a deep breath. Time to face Noah, with his endless questioning and probing. And what good did it do? There wasn’t anything she could tell him.

Noah sat at the desk, intent on his phone. Playing Candy Crush? No, she had to quit underestimating him. He was most likely texting his partner.

He glanced up. “Feeling better?”

Real concern coated his voice. She tried to answer, but only managed to nod.

“Try this, I made you a cup of tea.” He held out a paper cup of steaming liquid.

She clutched the cardboard as if it were a life preserver. Maybe it was.

“I need you to look around. Is anything different than you left it? Is anything missing?”

Well, there wasn’t a dead rose on her bed when she left, did that qualify as different?

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