₊˚.༄ 1926, Hotel Cortez

Taking a job at the newest hotel in town was an easy way to get money, especially since the owner of the place was pretty wealthy and still had money to burn even after building such an expensive hotel. You would work as a housekeeper, a maid; it was quite easy since you cleaned well and most effort had to be put in cleaning all the rooms, but even then you had a bunch of other housekeepers helping as well. Honestly, you liked working there and you found the hotel to be doing well, with all the guests and such.

One evening, changing out the bedsheets since the guests had randomly disappeared without warning, you had noticed an odd blotch of red on it. At first you thought that maybe it was just spilt wine or maybe a harmless nosebleed. Deep down you knew it wasn't an innocent stain but you tried to push the thoughts away as paranoia. You would just change the sheets and go clean the old one. After switching the bedsheets out, you had gone out the room and into the hallway to clean out the blood stain; after meticulously scrubbing, you finally got all of the blood out, barely a trace of it left. You held up the sheet in admiration for your handiwork until someone behind you spoke.

"Surprising," James said calmly. "Not a hint of blood left. And no irrelevant questions asked about it either."