Front Desk Justice: Catching Cheaters

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A pregnant woman walked into the hotel to catch her cheating partner. I was working the front desk as a summer job. She handed me an ID and asked for a room number, claiming she needed to drop off some work documents.

Sorry, I said. Hotel policy. We can't give out guest room numbers.

The pregnant woman looked crushed, but she didn't give me a hard time. She just slumped into a chair off to the side to wait it out.

I pulled up the guest's information using the ID number, intentionally cranked the screen's brightness to a blinding maximum, and shoved the monitor so it faced the lobby dead-on. Before walking away, I marched right up to her, pitching my voice into a loud, incredibly exaggerated tone. "Ma'am, I urgently need to use the restroom right now. During this time, please, absolutely do not peek at the room number displayed in massive font on my screen."

[The pregnant woman: ?]

Chapter 1

Summer break rolled around, and I picked up a temp job at a local hotel. The system was idiot-proof. The manager trained me for half a day and threw me behind the desk.

It was a small joint. The pay was crap, but it was close to home, and the front desk gig was pretty laid-back.

On my third day, right after noon, a pregnant woman walked in. She looked about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She was bone-thin, except for the massive baby bump leading the way.

With a belly that huge, she looked ready to pop any second. Who the hell lets a woman this pregnant wander around by herself? My palms actually started to sweat just watching her waddle over.

Sloane reached the counter and fished out her ID.

"Hi, I'm Sloane. Here's my ID. A coworker of mine is staying here. My boss sent me to drop off some files, but I don't have his room number.

"I have his ID number, though. Could you please check which room he's in?"

I typed the number into the system. The screen flashed: Room 403.

Room 403

It clicked.

Around eleven this morning, a guy and a girl strolled in arm-in-arm to rent a room by the hour. The dude wore a cheap knockoff suit, his hair slicked back with way too much grease. The girl was squeezed into a skin-tight mini dress, reeking of cheap, eye-watering perfume. They were practically dry-humping right there in the lobby.

His hands were shamelessly squeezing her waist, and she was giggling, rubbing herself all over his chest. The second they stepped into the elevator, it was a full-on gropefest. They were practically eating each other's faces off. It was quite the show.

At the time, I just figured they were a couple of horny young idiots. But looking at the pregnant woman in front of me, the math was painfully obvious. It was a scumbag cheating with his side piece.

Cheating while your partner is pregnant.

Absolute trash.

"Sorry," I said. "Do you think you could just call him and ask? Room numbers are guest privacy. Hotel policy says we can't give them out."

Yeah, the policy definitely said I couldn't hand out room numbers. But hey, if a pregnant woman forcefully hijacked my computer, what could I do to stop her?

Unfortunately, Sloane missed my hint. She just shook her head.

"N-no, it's fine. I'll just wait in the lobby for him" She stumbled over to a sofa and collapsed into it. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped her dress, then violently let go.

All the color drained from her face, leaving behind a sickly pale hue. Beads of cold sweat broke out across her forehead.

She bit her bottom lip so hard it bled.

I let out a heavy sigh. I cranked up the monitor's brightness and locked the screen so it wouldn't go to sleep. Then, I stepped out from behind the front desk to hit the restroom.

Before I left, I marched right up to her, pitching my voice into a loud, incredibly exaggerated tone. "Ma'am, I urgently need to use the restroom right now. During this time, please, absolutely do not peek at the room number displayed in massive font on my screen."

[Sloane: ?]

She froze.

Then, a sharp, clear light snapped into her eyes. "Y-yes! Understood! Thank you!"

Chapter 2

I killed five minutes in the bathroom. When I stepped back out, Sloane's defeated, sickly pallor was gone. She gripped her phone, radiating raw, war-ready energy.

It didn't take long for a beat-up cargo van to screech to a halt right outside our glass doors. The sliding door ripped open, and seven or eight bulky, heavily-muscled guys piled out. One of them had a massive camcorder hoisted on his shoulder.

The guy in the front made a beeline for Sloane. "Sloane? Where are those shameless pieces of trash?!"

Sloane pointed at the ceiling. "Upstairs!"

"Bet. Let's see how much he likes getting his face rearranged." He cracked his knuckles, and the whole crew stormed toward the elevators.

I slid right into their path. "Non-guests need to register first."

"Right, right, register first!" This time, Sloane was the picture of perfect compliance. "Hurry up and sign in, guys. Don't make her job harder."

They scribbled their names and crammed into the elevator. About ten minutes later, the cops showed up.

"Who called in the prostitution tip?"

I jerked my thumb toward the ceiling. "Room 403."

The officers were upstairs for a good while before herding a chaotic, shouting crowd back into the lobby. The scumbag and his side piece had their clothes haphazardly thrown on, wrinkled and disheveled, but surprisingly, neither had a scratch on their faces.

The side piece kept her chin glued to her chest. The scumbag, however, was like a cornered rat, buzzing around the cops and whining. "Officer, you've got to help me here! My coworker and I just came to the hotel for a quick nap on our lunch break, and these guys banged on the door and stormed in trying to beat me"

"Save it," the leading officer cut him off, clearly out of patience. "Did they actually lay hands on you?"

"Well, no," the scumbag choked on his words. "B-but they busted the door open and shoved a camera right in our faces! Just started recording everything!"

"That's a a blatant violation of my privacy! I'm pressing charges!"

The officers exchanged deadpan looks. "Privacy violation? Give me a break Wait, what exactly is this?"

The officer held up the scumbag's unlocked phone, shoving the glowing screen right into his greasy face. He pointed a rigid finger at the transaction history and the explicit chat logs, his voice dripping with mockery.

"Half an hour ago, you wired two thousand bucks to this woman. The memo literally says 'a little something for my baby to buy a bag.' A high-dollar transaction like this, combined with the current state of your clothes? That's more than enough for a felony solicitation charge."

The scumbag's knees buckled. He practically dropped to the floor, his hands waving frantically in the air. "Officer, no! It's not solicitation!"

"I swear it's not! She's just a coworker! She mentioned she wanted to buy a gold necklace, so I wired her the two grand!"

The officer raised an eyebrow. "Oh. So you're just having an extramarital affair, then?"

Once the manager caught wind of the circus, he dragged me into the back office and chewed me out for a solid thirty minutes.

But the very next day, an insanely massive, custom-designed floral arrangement and a gold-rimmed thank-you plaque were delivered straight to the front desk in the most high-profile way possible. Engraved in bold, elegant script on the plaque was a single line:

[Scumbag Destroyer, The Guardian Angel of Girls]

The manager's jaw practically hit the floor. He just stood there, awkwardly wringing his hands.

The guy who delivered the gifts was the same bulky dude who led the charge the day before. Along with the plaque, he slid a thick, unmarked envelope full of cash across the counter.

"Sloane's health took a bit of a hit," he said. "She's in the hospital right now, so she couldn't come down here herself. But she specifically told me to make sure you got properly thanked. She met that garbage bag on a blind date."

"His whole family works cushy government jobs. Everyone thought he was this honest, stand-up guy. Who the hell expects a man to start screwing his coworker the second his wife gets pregnant?"

"Sloane had actually caught him slipping a while ago, but his whole family is shameless! They thought having a baby meant they had her trapped. His own mother literally told her to swallow her pride for the sake of the kid, saying 'boys will be boys' and 'all men stray a little.' Can you believe that toxic bullshit?"

"Well, now we've got the hard proof. Sloane is filing for divorce. If that family cares even a fraction about their precious public image, they'll walk away with absolutely nothing!"

"She's keeping the baby and dumping the dead weight. It's not like our family can't afford to raise a kid on our own!"

I nodded so hard my neck hurt. "Damn straight! Sunk costs shouldn't dictate major life decisions!"

Chapter 3

Once the lobby cleared out, all the fight drained out of the manager.

"Look, it's great that you've got this whole righteous defender thing going on, but you need to think about your own safety," he warned, rubbing his temples. "Did it ever cross your mind that if Sloane opened her mouth and dropped your name, that scumbag might come hunting for payback once the dust settles?"

I scratched the back of my neck.

Well at the time, I was just so pissed, consumed by the thought that a trash bag who cheats on his pregnant wife deserves to burn in hell. I hadn't actually thought a single step beyond that.

The manager let out another heavy sigh. "Alright, just switch to the night shift for the next few days. Keep you out of the crosshairs if that guy comes snooping around."

Older and wiser, indeed.

Even though Sloane kept her mouth shut, the scumbag still managed to trace the scent back to me. He stormed into the lobby twice, throwing a massive tantrum about our "lax management" and threatening to sue for "leaking guest privacy."

The manager stonewalled him both times with flawless corporate double-speak.

Luckily, the guy's office was just down the street. Working a cushy government job meant he was terrified of making too much noise and nuking his own reputation, so he eventually cut his losses and vanished.

I slipped right into the night shift routine, stress-free. The night guard was this sweet older guy, totally chill and easy to talk to. Whenever the lobby was dead, we'd just hang out behind the desk, cracking sunflower seeds and killing time.

Later that night, a guy rushed up to the front desk, slapping his ID hard against the counter. "Get me a king room!"

I ran his card and handed over the keys to Room 416.

Barely five minutes after he hit the elevators, a woman caked in heavy makeup, her baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, tried to sneak past the desk.

"Excuse me, non-guests need to sign in," I called out.

She acted deaf, keeping her head down and rushing straight for the elevators.

I darted out from behind the counter and stepped right into her path. "Ma'am, you need to sign in first!"

She swatted at my arm, her face twisting in annoyance. "I don't have my ID on me!"

"If you don't have an ID, you have to hit up the police precinct down the street and get a temporary pass. You can't go up without it," I said flatly.

"Ugh, I'm literally just running up to drop something off. I'll be right back down. Why are you making this so difficult?" she snapped.

"Sorry, but nobody goes upstairs without an ID. Hard policy." I stared at her coldly, planting my body firmly in front of the elevator doors, refusing to yield a single inch.

"Why are you being such a tight-ass about this"

Our escalating volume caught the night guard's attention. He ambled over, crossing his arms as he positioned himself beside me, creating a solid wall against the woman. "It's the policy, miss. You want to go up, you need ID."

The woman muttered a string of curses under her breath, aggressively stabbing at her phone screen to make a call. Before she even finished whining to whoever was on the other end, the front desk landline rang.

It was the guy from 416. "Hey, the girl downstairs is my girlfriend. She's just coming up to hang out for a bit. Just let her through."

"Sorry, sir. Hotel policy. Anyone going up needs an ID," I repeated, my customer-service voice deadpan.

The guy kept trying to argue, pushing and pleading, but once he realized I was an absolute brick wall, he slammed the phone down in a rage.

A second later, the woman's cell rang. She snatched it up, shot me a venomous glare, and stormed out the sliding doors, her high heels clicking furiously against the pavement.

"Claimed she's his girlfriend. Since when is a girlfriend afraid to show an ID?" I threw my hands up in the air.

The security guard just awkwardly rubbed his bald head. "Maybe they, uh had a fight. Hahaha"

Chapter 4

I thought that was the end of it. But ten minutes later, the front desk phone started ringing again. Room 416.

"Front desk, how can I help you?"

"" The guy paused. When he finally spoke, his voice was dropped to a sleazy, hushed whisper.

"Hey, do you guys offer special services