Chapter 3 - Table Six
Wyatt crossed the restaurant first.
Jonah followed, leaving Mara with Stella.
The rear dining room was silent except for rain tapping the tall windows. Table Six sat beneath a brass pendant light, one chair slightly pulled back.
Wyatt touched the water glass.
"Still cold."
Jonah looked toward the service corridor. "Lock every door. Nobody leaves."
"Staff too?"
"Everyone."
Within minutes, Aurelia became a sealed building.
The night chef, two cleaners, a bartender, three guards, and the assistant manager were brought into the main dining room.
Stella stood in the office doorway despite Mara's protests.
Jonah noticed but said nothing.
"Security footage," he ordered.
Wyatt brought up the cameras on a tablet.
At 11:42, Stella entered through the front doors.
At 11:43, a man wearing a dark raincoat came through the kitchen delivery entrance using a staff key card.
His face stayed hidden beneath a baseball cap.
He moved directly to Table Six.
Stella leaned closer.
"Stop."
Wyatt paused the video.
She pointed at the screen. "His hand."
A silver ring caught the light.
Heavy. Square. Black stone.
Stella knew it.
She had seen it pressed against Dean's kitchen counter two nights earlier while Dean whispered to a man she was not supposed to hear.
"Who is he?" Jonah asked.
"I don't know his name."
"But you've seen him."
"At Dean's apartment. He came after midnight. Dean made me stay in the bedroom."
"What did they talk about?"
Stella hesitated.
Then she remembered Dean's message.
You should have been dead.
"They said something about Friday. And a ledger. Dean kept saying he couldn't move until the ledger was found."
Jonah and Wyatt exchanged a look.
"What ledger?" Stella asked.
Jonah did not answer.
On the video, the man at Table Six watched Stella approach Jonah. Then he reached under the table.
Wyatt zoomed in.
A small black device appeared in his hand.
"Remote trigger," Wyatt said.
Mara went still.
Jonah's eyes dropped toward the envelope.
"Everybody back."
One guard swept the cash with a handheld detector. Another carefully separated the bundles.
Hidden in the cardboard base of the envelope was a slim electronic tracker.
Not an explosive.
A beacon.
Wyatt swore. "They wanted to know exactly when the package reached you."
"And whether Stella survived the trip," Jonah said.
Stella wrapped her arms around herself.
"Why?"
Jonah looked at the photograph of the east entrance.
"Because Dean isn't paying a debt. He's helping someone plan around my movements."
A guard approached. "Boss, the man from Table Six left through the service hall at 11:51."
"Then why didn't the rear alarm trip?"
The guard's expression tightened. "Because somebody disabled it from inside."
Jonah looked at the line of employees.
No one spoke.
Then Stella's phone buzzed again.
Not Dean.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
A photo loaded.
It showed Stella standing in Jonah's office less than thirty seconds earlier.
Taken through the glass wall behind them.
May you like
Under the photo was one sentence.
TURN AROUND.
