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literally in the air, knuckles tucked and ready to knock, when I saw that the door was open. Not open like see-into-the-room open, but rather the door was just shy of the frame, as if someone had forgotten to close it all the way.
    If I wanted to step inside, all I had to do was push.
    Instead, I stepped back. There was a bad vibe racing through me, head to toe. Something wasn’t right.
    I stood there on the beige carpet, my feet frozen, while my brain sifted quickly through the options. Bad vibe or not, leaving wasn’t one of them. In fact, that door being open—be it ever so slightly—just made me all the more curious. For better or worse.
    I knocked. Softly, at first, on the outside chance that whoever was in there was still awake at four in the morning.
    Very outside chance. After ten seconds of silence, I knocked again. This time, louder. Then louder still.
    Oh, shit.
Too loud.
    The jarring sound came from directly behind me, a dead bolt sliding on the door to another room. I’d woken somebody up, all right, just the wrong person.
    Suddenly, I was in no-man’s-land, and my only thought was that I couldn’t afford to be seen. Call it instinct or sheer panic, but I was done knocking on the door of room 1701.
    I was now
in
room 1701.
    And I wasn’t alone.

CHAPTER 12
    IT WAS pitch black; I couldn’t see a thing. But there was no mistaking the sound of running water. It was the shower.
    Meanwhile, there was the other sound behind me. A door opening and closing out in the hallway. Whoever I’d woken up was going back to bed without laying eyes on me. One bullet dodged.
    Now what?
    I could practically hear myself playing lawyer with the police, telling them this wasn’t breaking and entering because technically the door was open. The trespassing charge, however, would be a little harder to argue.
    No, this was an easy decision. I’d slip back outside the door and wait for whoever was in the shower to get out. I’d knock again, and this time Claire’s source would hear me. It would be as if I’d never set foot in the room.
    But as I turned to reach for the handle, I felt the squish beneath my shoe. The carpet was wet. Soaked, actually.
    From there, it was all a blur.
    Immediately, I slapped my hand blindly against the wall until I found the nearest light switch. The entryway lit up as I rushed into the bathroom, the water splashing up beneath my feet.
    Again, I felt around for a light and found the switch. But it wasn’t working. I couldn’t see anything beyond shadows.
    Reaching for my phone, I hit the flashlight app and waited for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I literally jumped back, almost tripping over myself.
    Half his body was in the bathtub; the other half—his legs—dangled over the side. Also dangling was the cord of the hair dryer that was submerged in the water. It didn’t take a genius to put it together. This was no accident. Claire’s source had been murdered.
    I took a step forward, the light from my phone edging up toward his face. It was like a grotesque freeze-frame of the electrocution. Every muscle contracted, his mouth ovaled as if midscream. The stuff of nightmares.
    I knew what I was supposed to do next. It was what all the stupid characters in movies somehow decide not to do right before things spiral hopelessly out of control.
Go to the police.
In the big scheme of things, it didn’t matter how or why I was there in that room.
    As a forensic psychologist once told me in a deposition, with a slow nod of his bearded chin, “A dead body changes everything.”
    Problem was, all I could really think about in that moment was Claire. Whatever story she was chasing, it was the kind someone else didn’t want told.
Really
didn’t want told.
    And just like that, the random act of violence that had ended her life—a taxi robbery—didn’t seem so random.

CHAPTER 13
    THE NEXT thing I knew, I was holding off a minute on calling the police.
    Yes, it was a crime scene. Yes, I was aware I