Rain lashes the glass of the Tideway Hotel, blurring the pewter sea into a smear of grey. Nora Whitfield stands at the mahogany reception desk, her camel coat heavy with salt-damp and her single leather suitcase leaking a dark pool onto the polished floorboards. She is early, forty-one, and exhausted by the weight of a widowhood that still feels like a borrowed garment. She just needs the key to Room Twelve and a week of silence.
Lewis Brackett leans over the leather guest register, his features softened by the warm glow of a green-shaded lamp. He does not reach for a new key. Instead, he looks at her with a quiet, practiced courtesy that sends a sudden chill through her chest. I’m sorry, Mrs. Whitfield, he says, his voice as smooth as tarnish-free brass. You’ve already been checked in for six nights. You’re upstairs now.
Nora’s hand tightens on the edge of the desk. The hotel smells of bleached driftwood and something metallic, like old coins. She hasn’t left her house in months, let alone crossed the water to this island. The logistics of the lie are impossible, yet Lewis is already looking past her toward the shadows of the lobby. Footsteps begin to descend the main wooden staircase, slow and deliberate.
