“GET OUT!”—A Rich Woman Attacked a Mysterious Woman in Black at a Luxury Gala… Then a Maid Screamed, “THEY’VE LOCKED ALL THE EXITS!”

The loading dock doors groaned as a black sedan rolled toward the exit. Adrian recognized the vehicle. Celeste had bought it for Holt through a security contractor whose invoices he had never bothered to read.

"Stop that car," he called to a dock supervisor.

The supervisor, a tired man named Frank, planted himself in front of the vehicle. The driver hit the brakes with six feet to spare and laid on the horn. Iris kept her distance. Nobody needed another viral video of her kicking someone.

Holt came racing down the ramp. "Frank, move! It's company property."

"So am I, apparently," Frank answered. "You've paid me the same wage for eleven years."

Adrian opened the trunk while the officer assigned to the hotel stood beside him. The antique time clock lay on its back, wrapped in moving blankets. Its face had cracked. The numbered dial hung crookedly by one screw.

"This is evidence in an investigation," the officer said. "Nobody touches it now."

Iris leaned close enough to see through the broken glass. Someone had pried the upper casing loose. The compartment was empty.

"They took the cards," she said.

Holt spread his hands. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then why did you smash the clock?"

"I didn't."

Celeste arrived behind him, holding her phone at chest height. "Be careful, Adrian. Every accusation you make has consequences."

He turned to her. "So did locking people in a hallway."

Ava, now filming from the far end of the dock, asked whether the time clock held proof that Mateo Reyes had been framed. Celeste sneered. "That criminal had every chance to defend himself."

Marisol went still. Then she stepped forward. "My father worked twenty-four years in your basement. When your guests lost diamond earrings, he crawled into drains to find them. When the boiler failed on Christmas, he worked through the night. You turned him into a headline because he didn't have enough money to fight you."

Even Holt looked away.

The officer asked Celeste to remain available for questioning. It was not an arrest. It wasn't justice. But it was the first time anyone had told her she couldn't simply leave.

Iris noticed a narrow strip of faded yellow paper caught beneath the clock's back plate. On it were two handwritten initials and a date.