Chapter 7 - The Woman in Red Returns

For one furious instant Mara wanted to burst through the grate and make Celeste repeat those words in front of every guest upstairs. Then she heard Jonah cough, weakly, from the room beyond.

"We're not leaving him," Mara whispered.

Mrs. Fenwick unlocked the service panel. Adrian stayed behind it with his phone connected to the emergency dispatcher. Mara slid into the storeroom behind a stack of folded banquet chairs. She could see Jonah, tied beneath an old wall clock. The blue tiles matched the video.

Celeste stood near him, holding her skirt away from a puddle. The woman whose kick Mara had trapped thirty minutes earlier looked less like a queen now. Sweat had loosened a strand of blonde hair beside one ear. Her jaw still held the same hard line.

"You said he'd be released," Celeste told the guard.

"After the papers arrive, ma'am."

"That wasn't the agreement."

Mara rose from behind the chairs. "You made an agreement about a man's life?"

Celeste whipped around. For a second anger flooded her face. Then she saw the open panel behind Mara, the cook standing there with bolt cutters, and Adrian holding up his phone.

"Police are listening," Adrian said. "Everyone should choose their next sentence carefully."

The guard lunged toward Mara. She sidestepped, drove the rolling rack between them, and used the moment to cut Jonah's restraints. He crumpled against her shoulder. Mrs. Fenwick got under his other arm.

"Don't chase them," Celeste ordered. The guard hesitated. He had heard the dispatcher on Adrian's speaker.

Celeste turned to Adrian. "You don't understand what your father will do if those records get out."

"Then tell me."

She looked at Mara, the still-open box in Adrian's hand, and the photograph peeking over its edge. Her eyes fixed on the signature.

"Where did you find that invoice?"

"Drawer fourteen," Mara said.

Celeste went perfectly still. "My father told me it was destroyed."

"Destroyed why?"

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From Jonah's pocket slid a folded receipt covered in blue ink. He caught Mara's wrist before she could unfold it.

"There's another set," he rasped. "The money. The money tells you who ordered it."