Page 62 of Lucky Night

Black with smoke? she says, shrinking away a little.

But no fire, Jenny. Smoke rises, right? The stairs are probably clear farther down. Still, we won’t make it through right now.

He presses her hands between his. Looks into her eyes.

I did as you asked. I’m reporting back. Do you believeme?

She nods. Did you see Edvin?

I didn’t see anyone. He glances at the television. Any news?

Not much. The fire department is going room by room on the twenty-first floor.

Good. Nick looks around. He really did a number on this place, huh?

Together, they erase all traces of Edvin. He straightens up around the desk and returns the throw pillows to the sofa. She hangs the robes in the closet.

You expect Northern Europeans to be more orderly, don’t you? he says. They’ve got such clean cities. All that minimalist architecture.

She folds the duvet and places it along the bottom of the bed.He retrieves a bottle of wine that had rolled under the coffee table and checks it against the minibar menu.

Unbelievable! They’re charging two hundred bucks for pinot noir.

It’s minibar robbery, she says.

Right? He reaches for the corkscrew. Obviously we’re drinkingit.

She returns to the end of the bed and bumps up the volume on the television.

Hotel management is working to determine how many guests remain in the building, but they believe the number could be more than a hundred.

Over a hundred of them. It’s unreal. There’s no smell of smoke in the room. No flames visible out the window, or rippling black clouds. Just whirling snow. Juliana could be posing in front of a building in Moscow right now, or Minneapolis. Instead she’s a few hundred feet below them, and they’re a few hundred feet above asignificant blaze,watching it unfold on television.

He brings two glasses of wine over and takes a seat beside her.

What if Edvin comes back?

We don’t let himin.

But—

Jenny. We do not let himin.

Let’s call him, she says.

Why the hell would we call him?

To find out if he made it. If there’s a clear path down.

Yeah, but…he pauses. That’s not a bad idea, actually.

Shocker, right? I’m not a total idiot.

He looks startled. Who said you were?

She wakes his phone. What’s your passcode?

5455, he says. It spells Jill.

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