Odessa stood before a mirror in her bedroom and looked at the brown coat hanging from its hook. In the adjoining closet were enough tailored suits to dress a board of directors, but she reached for the same coat she had worn on Tuesday. Celeste, who had arrived to review the next morning's schedule, watched her take it down and shook her head.
"You're really wearing that to a formal inspection?" she asked.
"He should meet the same woman," Odessa replied. "The one whose money he swept off the counter. Otherwise he may convince himself he behaved properly toward a stranger and merely misidentified an executive."
Celeste considered that, then placed an official identification folder on the dressing table. "Tomorrow you walk through the door as yourself. We'll have the documents, the auditors, the preserved recordings, and the board authorization. No improvising about people's jobs until you've heard their accounts."
"Agreed," Odessa said.
"And if you decide Marcus should manage the Wexley, we'll need a transition plan that doesn't place an impossible burden on him. A good heart doesn't replace occupancy forecasting, labor law, or emergency procedures."
Odessa smiled. "That's why I hired you, Celeste. You insist on reminding me that my ideas must survive the next morning."
The older woman folded the coat over her arm and looked once at the framed photograph of Daniel on the dresser. He stood on the steps of their first small hotel in a work shirt, holding a paint roller and laughing because he had stepped backward into a tray. They had owned only eighteen rooms then. Odessa remembered that the first guest they ever admitted had arrived in rain without a reservation, carrying a suitcase held shut by rope, and Daniel had given her a towel before asking whether she could pay.
"Rain shows you who holds the door," Odessa said quietly.
Celeste closed her folder. "Then let's go inspect a hotel."
By eight on Friday morning, the Wexley lobby looked as though an entire wedding had been staged for one person. Fresh lilies stood in silver vases, the marble gleamed beneath repeated polishing, and a red carpet ran from the main entrance toward the reception desk. Brett Lawson had stationed security personnel along the walls, although none of them understood why an inspection required the same arrangement normally used for visiting dignitaries. The staff stood in pressed uniforms, some anxious, some merely tired, while a small orchestra recording played softly through the hidden speakers.
Grant Whitley entered at eight forty-five in a dark suit chosen specifically for the photographs he expected to appear in the company's newsletter. He examined the flowers, corrected the position of a brass sign, and criticized a housekeeper for leaving a small fold in a tablecloth nobody intended to use. When he passed Paige, he paused just long enough to ask whether everything was under control at the front desk. She told him the reservation system was functioning normally. It was the safest true answer she could give.