Chapter 7 - The Woman They Tried to Silence
Ava's footage showed the whole thing: Celeste swinging first, Iris blocking, Celeste charging again, the controlled kick that stopped inches short. It also showed Holt turning toward the nearest guard at the sound of Marisol's voice.
The officer watched twice. "That doesn't look like the report I got."
"Which report?" Iris asked.
"The one signed by Mr. Holt."
Holt tried to slip through the crowd. Victor stepped into his path. His knees were shaking, but he didn't move. "I was told to lock those doors. I'll give you my radio logs."
The officer separated them for interviews. That should have been good news. Instead, two hotel guards shoved through the lobby with Marisol between them, her arms twisted behind her back.
"She stole confidential property," Holt said. "We caught her trying to leave with maintenance documents."
"Get your hands off me," Marisol gasped. "Those belong to my father."
An officer intercepted the guards. Celeste stepped forward with a folder. "I have a signed report and a witness statement. Arrest her."
Iris saw what was happening: if Marisol disappeared into an interview room, Holt could move the clock, and if Iris followed, he could call it interference. She chose the only weapon that wasn't a fist.
"Ava," she said, loud enough for the lobby to hear, "keep filming."
Celeste turned crimson. "You can't turn my hotel into a circus."
"It isn't yours yet," Adrian said.
The officer ordered the guards to release Marisol while he checked the facts. Ava filmed the release. Marisol held her head high until the guards walked away. Then she leaned against a pillar and started shaking. Iris put a hand on her shoulder. She remembered being seventeen in a courthouse hallway, hearing strangers call her dead mother careless.
"We're not going to lose this again," Iris whispered.
Marisol swallowed. "Dad wrote me a letter this morning. I thought it was another note telling me not to waste my life fighting. But he mentioned the wall clock."
She unfolded a creased page from her apron. Under a drawing of the old loading dock was a line of numbers: 6:14, 6:19, 6:23.
"What are those?" Adrian asked.
May you like
"The last three times my father punched in," Marisol said. "And the fire started at six sixteen."
Iris looked up slowly. "Then someone punched his card after he was already trapped downstairs."
