Chapter 14 - Behind the Red Door
The old Saint Alder wing felt abandoned, but it wasn't empty. A little girl's homework hung on a refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a strawberry.
"They call this a vacant building," Marisol said bitterly.
Under the loading dock office, the wall paint had cracked around an old red exit door. Iris recognized it at once from Rosa's photograph. The chain had been removed years before. Four holes in the metal still showed where the brackets had been drilled.
Iris touched none of it. She took photographs and called the investigator assigned to the scene. "There," Owen said, pointing to a loose baseboard. "Rosa kept the first-aid kit behind it."
They removed the board carefully. Behind it sat a canvas bag wrapped in plastic. Inside were a handwritten incident diary, three time cards, and a cheap voice recorder with a faded sticker of a sunflower.
Marisol pressed play. The sound hissed, then Rosa's voice came through, tired but steady.
"April sixteenth. Cedric says the red exit stays secured for the Voss inspection. I told him the kitchen crew is still working. He said to mind my own job. If anybody finds this, please don't let Mateo carry the blame."
Iris sat on the floor. Hearing her mother breathe between sentences nearly broke her. She had spent years wishing for one more ordinary morning together. Now the voice she missed was asking for justice.
A door slammed above them. Footsteps pounded on the stairs.
"Move away from that bag!" Holt shouted.
Victor drew back with the officer. Holt appeared at the landing holding a heavy flashlight, his expression wild. He looked at the recorder and understood at once.
"That belongs to the hotel," he said.
May you like
Iris stood. "No, Cedric. It belongs to the people you buried."
Behind Holt, a thin line of smoke began slipping along the ceiling.
