“Also,” Edie says, “she has a pit bull. His name is Doug.”
“What?” Lizbet says.
Edie kisses her dream of this week’s thousand-dollar bonus goodbye.
6. Staff Secrets
In her century as a ghost, Grace has developed and honed her EQ; her instincts about people are （nearly） always correct. Grace can sense trouble—it feels as though she’s hearing a wrong note in a song or tasting a wine that has gone off. And while Grace is intrigued by the unexpected arrival of this family, she sees a flashing yellow light of warning when she looks at the mother. Kimber Marsh is lying about something. The children, however, are precious little angels, so cute and odd that Grace would like to cuddle them.
The children run, shouting, into the bunk-room wonderland of suite 114 with the dog following at a trot. The little boy, Louie, scales the ladder to the top bunk closest to the door, then clambers across a rope bridge to the other top bunk. The little girl, Wanda, tucks herself into the swing that looks like a wicker egg and opens her mystery book. Doug the dog stops just inside the threshold of the room and raises his bucket head. He starts to whine.
Oh, snap, Grace thinks. He senses her; animals nearly always do.
“What’s wrong, Dougie?” Wanda says. “Come on.”
Grace floats into the master bedroom, where Kimber Marsh runs a finger along the spines of the books lining the shelves. She’s really quite lovely when she smiles, Grace thinks, though the green and blue hair is unsettling. And something else is off.
Kimber opens the small icebox and pulls out a package of crackers, a tub of smoked bluefish paté, and—well, it is five o’clock in Greenland—a bottle of cranberry pinot gris from Nantucket Vineyards. She pours the glass of sparkling wine, then drags the cracker through the paté and shoves it into her mouth. Grace forgives her table manners because she’s so thin and needs to eat. Then Kimber slips over to the tablet by the bedside and suddenly the room fills with music. It’s M?tley Crüe singing “Home Sweet Home.” Grace hasn’t heard this song since the early nineties.
Kimber goes into the bathroom with her toiletries and Grace follows cautiously; she has to avoid the mirrors just in case Kimber has, as it was popular to say in the late nineties, “a sixth sense.” （I see dead people.） Kimber glances around, sniffs the Nest candle by the tub （Amalfi lemon and mint）， turns on the soft halo light around the mirror, and winks at her reflection. Okay? Grace thinks. Let’s unpack this: Why would a person wink at herself? She’s pulled something off? She doesn’t have a penny to her name but now she and the children and the dog are ensconced in these glorious digs?
Back in the bedroom, Kimber has another cracker and then, from the mess of luggage they brought, she fishes out a red duffel. She unzips it to reveal thick bricks of cash. So she wasn’t bluffing about the money, Grace thinks. As she’s stacking the cash in the safe in the walk-in closet, there’s a knock at the door. Kimber tenses, then creeps out to the living room. She looks through the peephole and smiles.
It’s Grace’s crush Zeke （sigh） holding one of the marble chess sets from the lobby. “Edie said that Louie lost his travel chess set. She thought he might like to have a board of his own for the room.”
“Thank you!” Kimber said. “How thoughtful.” She holds up a finger. “Let me get you a little something.”
“No need,” Zeke says. “It’s our pleasure.”
Lizbet has just finished showing the couple from Syracuse around—the woman said she had a “nice” following on Instagram, and Lizbet thought she might help spread the word about the hotel—and she’s been on her feet all day long （what possessed her to wear stilettos?）， but when Edie tells her about the family in suite 114, she hustles back to the office. All she can think as she collapses into her chair is that Sweet Edie was duped on day one by some grifter.
She has to go to suite 114.
Lizbet limps down the hall and knocks on the door with a smile on her face that’s so forced, it makes her head ache.
Kimber Marsh opens the door. Thank God Edie warned Lizbet about the hair, because it’s startling. “Ms. Marsh, hello. I’m Lizbet Keaton, the general manager of the hotel.”
“What a beautiful property you have here,” she says. “The kids are in heaven.”
Lizbet had meant to be firm but when the two little towheaded children in glasses tiptoe out of the bunk room, she relents immediately. The girl is holding a book, and the boy clutches a white chess queen. “I spoke with Edie, who checked you in. She told me you’d like to pay in cash, which is fine. I’ll need the first week as a deposit.”