I tipped the envelope over the oak table, and a small stack of papers slid out, spreading across the wood.
They were eleven hotel receipts, printed on the narrow thermal paper that curls at the edges when left in a drawer. Every single one of them was from the Berkshire Inn in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
The guest name on each slip was Troy Whitaker.
The dates began fourteen months ago, spaced almost exactly five weeks apart. Each receipt showed a charge for a three-night stay in Room Two Hundred Twelve, always starting on a Thursday and ending on a Sunday morning.
I sat down in my usual chair, my fingers tracing the faded purple ink of the most recent slip, which was dated three weeks before Thanksgiving. The daily rate was one hundred and forty dollars, plus the local lodging tax, bringing the total for each stay to four hundred and eighty dollars. There were no long-distance calls listed, no charges for the dining room, and no movies ordered on the television. He had spent his time there in silence, or at least without spending a single extra dollar beyond the room itself.
