“Has anything been stolen?” Nancy asked.
Zoe’s brown eyes were filled with worry. “I don’t know. Many things were left behind. Maybe nothing was stolen at all,” she said hopefully. “I’ll have to check the contents of the safe against our log book.” Reaching under the counter, she pulled out a fat notebook and turned to a page with dozens of entries penciled in.
“Looks as if that will take a while,” George said. “Do you want us to help?”
“Would you mind?” Zoe asked, looking grateful. “The inventory will go faster that way.”
Nancy, Bess, and George joined Zoe behind the check-in counter, then followed her through the doorway and into the back office.
The rosy light of dusk streamed into the room through the slats of a shaded window. On the wall just inside the door was a board with hooks for extra keys to the guest rooms. A metal safe rested on the floor in the far corner, behind a desk covered with stacks of invoices and registration forms.
“First, let me remove everything,” Zoe said. She knelt down beside the square gray safe and pulled out a plastic carton containing stacks of manila envelopes. Nancy, Bess, and George gathered around Zoe as she stood and placed the carton on the desk.
“I can’t stand the suspense,” Bess said, flipping through the envelopes to find the one marked with her name.
“Me, either,” George said. She found her envelope and Nancy’s and pulled both out.
Checking in her pouch, Nancy was relieved to find her passport and traveler’s checks, just as she’d left them. She leafed through the passport, noting the visas stamped on the blue-green pages printed with a bald eagle. “Everything’s here,” she reported.
“Mine checks out, too,” George said.
When Bess said nothing, Nancy looked over at her. Bess’s mouth had fallen open, and there was a look of shock on her face. “My passport’s missing!” she said in a horrified whisper.
“Are you sure?” Nancy asked. She leaned over Bess’s shoulder as Bess looked into the envelope once again. The traveler’s checks were there, Nancy saw, but Bess’s passport was gone.