Chapter 11 - The Empty Hotel Room
They reached the hotel in nine minutes.
It felt like ninety.
Anna ran through the lobby before the car had fully stopped.
The two private guards assigned to their floor were gone.
One had been found unconscious in a service closet.
The other was missing.
The suite door stood open.
“Leo!”
Anna ran inside.
Toy cars were scattered across the rug.
The television was still playing a cartoon.
Leo’s small sneakers sat beside the couch.
But Leo was gone.
Anna made a sound Richard would remember for the rest of his life.
Not a scream.
Something lower.
Broken.
Alvarez grabbed Anna before she could run back into the hall.
“Listen to me. We lock this down. We pull every camera. We move fast.”
“My baby is gone.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t!”
Richard stood in the center of the room, white-faced.
On the coffee table was a folded note.
He opened it.
Stop fighting your family.
Sign temporary custody to Vanessa.
Withdraw your accusations.
You get Leo back tonight.
Anna ripped the page from his hand.
“She wants us to give him to the woman who tried to kill him?”
“It’s leverage,” Alvarez said. “Not a real legal demand.”
Anna rounded on her. “Then get him back.”
The detective did not flinch.
“We will.”
Security footage showed a hotel housekeeper pushing a linen cart onto the floor. The woman wore a cap low over her face.
Six minutes later, the cart returned to the elevator.
The housekeeper’s uniform was found in a stairwell trash bin.
The person underneath it was Vanessa.
Another camera caught her entering a black SUV in the parking garage.
The missing private guard was driving.
Richard recognized him.
“Dale Kessler.”
Alvarez looked over. “Who?”
“My mother’s former driver.”
The pieces were no longer pieces.
They were a machine.
Catherine had supplied people.
Vanessa had supplied motive.
Nolan had supplied access.
And Anna had been the target from the beginning.
Then a young hotel employee entered the room holding something in a plastic evidence sleeve.
“We found this in the service elevator.”
It was Leo’s red toy car.
Anna pressed both hands over her mouth.
The employee continued.
“There’s something inside.”
Alvarez turned it over.
A tiny folded strip of paper had been jammed through the broken rear window of the toy.
On it, in hurried handwriting, were two words.
LAKE HOUSE.
Richard stared at the note.
May you like
Only three people outside the family knew about the abandoned Mercer lake property.
One of them was Nolan.
