Beneath (WIP)

Awakened in the night

I was awakened in my sleep by the sound of my phone ringing. The sound awoke both me and my wife. I looked at my alarm clock and found it said 3 AM. Who was calling at this hour? My wife noticed the phone ringing and looked a little upset. I didn't blame her. Someone calling your spouse in the dead of night didn't sit well with anyone. I wasn't a cheater. Helen knew that. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was the number of the local police station. I picked up the call, curious about why they were calling me.

"Hello?" I asked groggily.

"Hello, is this Mark Thompson?" the person, who I assumed to be an officer on the other end of the line, asked.

"Yes, I'm Mark Thompson. Is there a problem?" I asked.

Stupid question....Stupid question....But my tired self didn't know any better. I asked it anyways. I damn well knew there was a problem if the cops were calling my house at 3 AM. Why else would they be pestering me? I didn't commit any crimes myself, but I was worried anyways. This type of call was never anything good.

"Yes, there's been a call reporting a break-in at your hotel. We need you to come here immediately."

"A break-in?" I asked in shock. Helen caught onto what was going on, and she jumped out of bed, immediately putting on a gray jacket over her cami top.

"Yes, one of your guests said a man broke into her room. She called us, and we're here now conducting an investigation."

I felt sick to my stomach. Guest safety was my top priority. I began to blame my night desk woman for this. These were the very incidents she was supposed to prevent. Seriously, Margaret? If you wanted to be the night desk person, you need to do your damn job and watch for suspicious people coming in. Maybe this somehow wasn't her fault, but I was immediately blaming her for this.

"Is anyone hurt? Was anything stolen?" I asked.

"Mr. Thompson, we need you to come onto the scene. We'll discuss the details with you there." the officer said. I sighed.

"Alright...see you soon. I'm on my way." I hung up the phone and stared at Helen as we shared our shocked expressions.

"We need to go. Right now." I said.

She didn't argue with me as we got dressed to the best of our ability and raced out the door. We didn't have any time to waste. We jumped into our tan suv and sped down the road as fast as we were able to, legally of course. We didn't need more trouble than what we were already in. We arrived at the inn and saw all the flashing red and blue police lights. I got out of the car and approached the police officers and saw the scared guest, a young woman, standing there in a black jacket. I recognized her to be Hannah Laine who was staying in Room 22. The poor woman looked traumatized.

"Are you alright? I am terribly sorry this happened to you." I asked.

Hannah nodded. She didn't seem upset at me. She seemed more stunned and angry at the situation. At least, that's how I hoped to interpret it.

"Yeah." she muttered. A police officer tapped me on the shoulder.

"Mr. Thompson, can you come with me for a minute?" he asked.

I nodded and walked with him back into the hotel where another officer was sitting with Margaret at the desk. I'd talk to her later. Looking at my beautiful hotel, I never imagined it would be home to a crime scene filled with police cars. The officer led me upstairs to Room 22 and presented me with the room. So far, everything looked alright. The officer took a deep breath.

"I'd like to start off by saying there were no injuries or theft. Miss Laine is fine, and nothing was stolen. The room has no damages either." the officer informed me. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, good. I was worried about that. Usually with a break-in, I think that someone came to assault someone or steal from them." I replied. There was a long pause while the officer crossed his arms.

"You'd think that to be the case...Well Mr. Thompson, this is the strangest break-in I have ever heard of let alone investigated. We acquired a physical description of the suspect based on what Miss Laine told us. When we interviewed your night desk woman, Margaret Holland, she told us there was no such guest who checked into your hotel. We checked all the camera footage from the past few days and the suspect strangely did not show in them at all. I would like to ask you if you have seen any guests or anyone hanging around your inn that match with the following description provided by Miss Laine. Suspect is a white male around six feet tall and looks to be about in his mid-thirties. He was wearing a black tank top and black jeans. No tattoos or other identifying markings. She thinks he had brown hair, but she couldn't be sure since her room was dark. She is partially confident in her hair color because it was definitely was a dark color. She told me she'd know if he was blonde or had any other shade. Have you seen anyone like that?"

I thought about all of my guests as their images flew through my mind. There weren't very many guests at the time, so I could remember them all. Strangely, I couldn't think of a man in that description. Perhaps he wasn't even staying at my hotel and just broke in and got past Margaret somehow, but Margaret had never seen him before either. How did he get in? Room 22 is on the second floor. It's not like he got in through a window.

"No, I haven't." I said.

"I expected that answer. No one seems to know anything about this guy. We even questioned some neighboring guests who didn't know anything about him. This case is even stranger because Miss Laine says she locked her door before she went to sleep. We did some fingerprints on the door and found no sign that someone even opened her door. Her fingerprints are the only ones we found. Our only conclusion is that whoever broke into her room had to already be in there. When we searched the room though, we found no one there. No sign of exit. No sign that anyone was even in there. No camera footage besides empty hallways and Miss Laine running. The suspect couldn't have jumped out the window and been physically alright since you have some rocks down there. It was like she had seen a ghost."

I was baffled. This didn't make any sense. I was expecting a normal break-in like someone had gotten past Margaret or broke out a window on the first floor, nothing like this. I thought about all the possible scenarios, but I was drawing blanks. The officer had hit on all of the points already.

"Well ghosts aren't real, officer. There has to be an explanation for this." I said. He shrugged.

"Best thing we can chalk it up to be is a really vivid nightmare that Miss Laine suspected to be real. That happens sometimes. There isn't anything else we can do. We've done our part. We did everything we could and found nothing. We will keep her suspect description on record though just in case something like this happens again with the same suspect, but the best I can advise you as an owner to do is just make sure your security features are up to date, hire some security guards if that makes you feel better, check and secure the locks, emergency exits, windows, all possible entry points. If you happen to find anything else related to this case or if you have another problem, just give us a call and we'll be back, but for now, we're going to put this case on hold."

I nodded and accepted their results. I wasn't going to argue with them to look more. They had done all they could.

"Thank you, officer. I'll be sure to report anything I see." I said.

The officer nodded and I walked with him back outside where the investigation was cleaning up. I was so confused. How was this possible? I cared about the safety of my guests, and I wanted to take that officer's advice and make sure they were truly safe. Tomorrow, I would do a little investigating myself.