Chapter 3 - A Door Locked From the Outside
For one second, Conrad looked like an ordinary older man who had suddenly found his name in the wrong place. Then he smiled.
"An excellent forgery," he said. "Give that to me."
"No," Gideon answered.
Celeste seized his sleeve. "Darling, don't let an employee humiliate us in public. The cameras are everywhere."
They were. A hundred phones had risen above the white tablecloths. The Bellwether's owner stood holding a note from his supposedly dead mother, while the woman he meant to marry begged him to pretend nothing had happened.
Victor Shaw, the hotel general manager, pushed through the guests with two security officers.
"Miss Ellis," he said, "your employment is terminated. Come with me."
"She's speaking to me," Gideon said.
"She's violated staff policy and caused a disturbance."
"I own this building, Victor. I decide when the conversation ends."
Victor's eyes flickered toward Conrad before he stepped back. It was such a small glance that most people missed it. I didn't. My mother had trained me to notice who looked at whom when money was involved.
"You wanted to know why we came tonight," I told Gideon. "Tomorrow your company signs over the land beneath this hotel. My mother says the deed they're using was stolen."
Conrad laughed. "She has no idea what she's talking about."
"Then why did your lawyer call her three times last week?"
I pulled out my phone. The numbers were still there. So was a message offering to cover her medical bills if she stopped asking about the east stairwell.
Gideon took a screenshot. "Who sent this?"
Before I could answer, Victor's hand closed around my phone. "Company property can't be photographed without permission."
"That is my phone."
He bent toward me, his smile invisible to everyone behind him. "You should have stayed in the kitchen, Mara."
I grabbed for it. A guard stepped between us. Someone shouted. The violinists abandoned their instruments.
Gideon caught Victor's wrist and calmly took my phone back.
"You're suspended," he told him. "Leave your badge at the front desk."
Victor said nothing. His face had gone hard.
Then my phone lit up with a call from our downstairs neighbor. I answered on speaker, desperate to hear a familiar voice.
"Mara?" Mrs. Delgado cried. "Two men came for your mom. They said you sent them. I told them you were at work, but they took her anyway."
"What men?"
"One wore a hotel security jacket."
May you like
From the silence at the head table, I knew everyone had heard.
And when I looked up, Victor Shaw was already running.
