At eleven o’clock, Graff handed Rhea the master keys and went home.
She held them for a moment, knowing they could open every door in the Voss, including the chairman’s office on the seventh floor.
That was why she’d wanted the night desk rather than any other job in the hotel.
During the day, the building was full of people, though at night it belonged to whoever held these keys.
Somewhere in this building, there had to be a record of the night her mother disappeared, something the police had missed or never bothered to take.
Rhea meant to find it, even if not on her first night.
For now, she needed to learn the building again, from the service hallways to the stairs that led down to the vault.
She put the keys in her pocket and sat down behind the desk.
Sooner or later, she would have to look Victor Voss in the eye and call him sir as he walked past.
She’d been preparing herself for that since she’d decided to apply for the job.
Most of the night passed quietly.
Samson held the door for the few guests who arrived late, while Mimi answered the night calls from the office behind the desk.
At seven minutes past three, a light came on beside a button marked GLASSHOUSE, and the desk phone rang.
Mimi leaned out of the office.
“That’s Mr. Matthew,” she whispered.
“The chairman’s younger son. He lives up on the roof and calls down every night with some request.” She grimaced.
“Good luck.”
Rhea picked up the phone.
“Good evening, night desk.”
“You must be the new one,” said a man’s voice, lazy and pleasant.
“Yes, sir.”
“I can’t sleep. I’d like a bedtime story.”
“Certainly, sir.”
After a pause, he laughed as though he hadn’t expected that answer.
“Really?”
“Really, sir. Would you like it over the phone?”
“No, up here, please,” he said, still amused.
“Stories are wasted on the phone.”
Then he hung up.
Rhea put the phone down.
She understood perfectly well that this was a test, and she suspected the others had failed it.
Now that she was so close to her goal, she couldn’t afford to do the same.
She also understood what he was hoping for.
A new night concierge sent up to the roof at three in the morning to tell the chairman’s son a bedtime story was supposed to trigger some sort of blush or flirt.
But Rhea didn’t intend to do any of that.
She took a copy of the hotel’s history from the drawer under the desk, a thin booklet left in every guest room that told the story of the Voss the way the family wanted it told.
It was the dullest thing in the building, and yet nobody could possibly say it was inappropriate.
Leaving the desk on her first night was a risk, but refusing the request seemed worse.
Samson agreed to watch it while she was gone, so she took the fire stairs to the roof, mostly to avoid Gus and his weird birdcage lift.
The Glasshouse stood at the far end of the roof and was fully lit which meant someone was there as she had expected.
But when nobody answered her knock, she let herself in.
Canvases leaned against the glass walls wherever she looked.
The chairman’s son stood among them, barefoot on the stone floor in the middle of winter, painting.
He was taller than she had expected and a few years older than her, with dark hair that needed cutting.
When he saw her, he turned the canvas he was working on to face the glass, which made Rhea wonder what he didn’t want her to see.
He kept one hand in his pocket the whole time and smiled as she entered, but she was determined not to let herself be persuaded by that.
He was a Voss, and she had no intention of liking him, however much he smiled at her.
His eyes went to the booklet under her arm.
“What’s that?”
“Your bedtime story, sir.”
She opened it to the first page and began to read in the politest voice she had.
“The Voss Hotel. Our Story. Chapter one. Since 1904, the Voss family has welcomed guests from all over the world.”
He stared at her, then started to laugh as he sat on the edge of his bed to listen.
“Chapter two,” Rhea went on.
“That same year, the family built an orangery on the roof, where guests could take tea among the orange trees.”
“Oh, I know this one,” he said.
“I kind of live in it.”
Then, after a few more moments.
“Does it have a happy ending?” he asked.
“It hasn’t ended yet, sir.”
She didn’t tell him that she had come to the Voss to make sure the ending wouldn’t be a happy one.
He leaned over to look at the old photograph on the next page, close enough that she could smell the paint on him, so she involuntarily took a step back.
“Can I keep it?” he asked.
“I want to know how it ends.”
She handed it over.
When he took it, his fingers brushed hers, and she was surprised to find them warm in a room that seemed so cold.
His eyes went to her name badge.
“Rhea.”
“Miss Ellis, sir.”
“Miss Ellis,” he repeated, and looked at her, studying something she couldn’t quite understand.
“Have we met?”
“No, sir.”
As far as she knew, that was true, though the question made her uneasy.
He didn’t look convinced for some reason, but he eventually let it go.
“So why would anyone want the night desk?” he asked.
“It’s lonely, even frightning at times, and you have to answer my calls on top of everything.”
“I like the peace of it, sir,” she said, which was a lie.
“There’s nothing peaceful about this place at night. You’ll see.”
Rhea noted the way he said it, as if he knew the hotel’s nights better than she did.
If the chairman’s son wandered the building after dark, he could become a problem.
She had to be careful.
His name wasn’t her only reason to dislike him.
To him, the request he had just made was merely a game, but for the staff who had to go up seven floors in the middle of the night to answer it, it was simply part of the job.
She turned to go.
“Same time tomorrow, Miss Ellis?”
“The night desk is always open, sir.”
“You know the last three night concierges quit,” he said behind her.
Rhea looked back at him.
“I’m not the last three, sir.”
At the door, she glanced back through the glass.
He had settled on the bed with the booklet open on his knees, smiling as he read.
For some reason, that irritated her terribly though she couldn’t exactly name the reason.