The Baudelaires woke up the next morning after a long, much deserved sleep. The sofas had been surprisingly comfortable to sleep on, so no one woke up sore and stiff. As Violet yawned and stretched, she smiled at Klaus who was sitting on the other sofa and at Sunny who was rubbing her eyes right next to her. "Well, I'm glad to see everyone slept good." she said.
"Yeah, we needed this after all we've been through." Klaus said, picking up his clothes from one of the suitcases.
"Bak." said Sunny happily, indicating that she too felt better as well.
After everyone stepped away for some privacy to change into their regular clothes, the three gathered back into the center of the lobby to decide what sort of things they should do that day. Violet was particularly interested in exploring the old boiler room in the basement and studying all the gauges, gears and such that made it up. "Maybe I'll learn some new things I can possibly build." she said.
"You go do that, Sunny and I will stay here and explore the lobby." said Klaus, bouncing Sunny on his knee. As soon as they stood up, they heard voices coming from the outside.
"God, please don't tell me the authorities found us." Klaus said with a worried tone in his voice.
"Shh, listen." said Violet, putting her finger to her mouth.
The children froze in fear as they heard two men talking outside on the main porch. One of them asked "So being caretaker is nothing?" to which the other man responded "It helps the cash flow."
Violet and Klaus gave each other scared looks, realizing just now the hotel did have a caretaker and that they would be in huge trouble if they got caught. Violet then whispered to Klaus "Klaus, take the suitcases and get behind the desk now." while pointing at the concierge desk. "Sunny and I will follow you." Fully understanding the seriousness of the situation they were in, Klaus grabbed the two small suitcases and ran behind the desk, followed closely by Violet holding a terrified Sunny in her arms. They got behind the desk just in the nick of time, because as soon as they did they heard a key turn and the doors pushed open.
"Come on Q, you're the caretaker. Come in." one of the men said.
The other man, who was obviously Q, said defiantly "No way man, there's ghosts in there. It's haunted."
"Allright Q, suit yourself." the first man said. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny all looked at each other with puzzled looks. Could this 60 year old hotel really be haunted, or was Q just afraid to step inside? They squeezed even tighter together when they heard the mystery man walk over to the desk, fearing he would look behind it and see them. For what seemed like the longest minute of their lives, they waited and listen to the man look at the many papers and personal items that were still on the desk. Finally, they listened to his footsteps as he walked away towards the main staircase. But the children didn't dare look up until they heard him walk down the stairs and knew for sure he was out of the lobby.
Klaus slowly peaked up over the edge of the desk and asked "Could this place really be haunted?"
Violet responded with "Even if it's not, whatever caused this hotel to shut down still scares people to this day. I mean, even the caretaker is obviously afraid to come in."
"This mystery just gets bigger and bigger, and we've been here not even two days yet." Klaus said. Sunny didn't say anything in return, but she too was a little frightened at what she had to encounter at the hotel.
The children suddenly heard the mystery man's footsteps running up the stairs and they quickly ducked behind the desk again. As the man went running out of the hotel, they could hear him say to himself "I found it. Abigail was right." and he slammed the doors closed behind him.
The Baudelaires allowed themselves to breathe a sigh of relief before coming out from behind the desk. They were very thankful that they had not been discovered by these two men, but soon they were to find out there was a lot more to the Hollywood Tower Hotel than what they had seen and heard.