Chapter 2 - The Girl Beneath the Music
The orchestra started playing again, too loud and much too cheerful. It gave the guests an excuse to pretend the floor wasn't holding a man who had just tried to attack his wife. Elena saw that instinct at work: eyes turning, shoulders lifting, mouths closing around uncomfortable truths.
"What's your name?" she asked the server.
"Noah Price. I'm nineteen." His white service gloves were stained with something dark around the fingertips. "My sister's Tessa. She works the late banquet shift. She texted me that a security guy was taking her to the lower offices. Then her phone went dead."
Elena looked back into the ballroom. Victor was up on one elbow, staring at her with the hate he usually saved for people who refused to sell their businesses to him. Two security officers moved toward him, not to restrain him but to help him stand.
"Why would Victor take Tessa?"
"She saw a ledger," Noah said. "It had names and amounts. She told me it looked like payoffs." He rubbed at his glove. "She got a nosebleed when they grabbed her. That's all this is. I swear."
"You don't need to convince me." Elena took his wrist gently. "Show me the elevator."
"Elena!" Victor roared from the ballroom.
She didn't turn. Noah led her through a service corridor smelling of lemon cleaner and roasted meat. The music disappeared behind two swinging doors. On the lower level, they found a maintenance cart tipped onto its side and a cracked phone near the freight elevator. Noah dropped to his knees.
"It's hers."
A text lit up Elena's own phone. It came from a number she hadn't saved, but she knew it anyway. Her mother-in-law, Celia Ward, preferred to send threats through assistants and strangers.
LEAVE THE HOTEL ALONE. THE GIRL GOES HOME.
Elena typed back: LET HER CALL HER BROTHER.
Three dots appeared, vanished, appeared again. Then a photograph arrived. Tessa sat in a windowless room, frightened but conscious, holding up a sheet of paper with two words written across it.
ASK MARCUS.
May you like
Elena's breath caught. Her brother Marcus had been dead for eleven months.
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