Prologue
Everyone has probably played a game called “The Winker” when they were kids. Everyone sits in a circle with one kid in the center. Everyone than puts their heads down. If you are tapped twice you are The Winker. When everyone’s heads are up, the game begins. The Winker can “kill” people by winking at them. If the kid in the middle, the “Detective,” catches The Winker winking, the game is over. The Detective can watch whomever he suspects. But if he is watching The Winker, and is distracted for the shortest time, The Winker can wink at someone.
Even if everybody reading this novel has played this game as a kid, I can bet no one has played like the characters in this book. Imagine the Detective is real; the kids playing the game are frightened adults in an otherwise abandoned Hotel, and The Winker is a violent murderer.
You got the story.