Chapter 7 - The Room Without Windows

Mara Reed had learned that panic spent oxygen faster than fear.

She sat on a concrete floor with her hands secured in front of her, counting the breaths between the clang of metal doors. She had a swollen lip, a throbbing wrist, and one thought she refused to finish: Sophie had seen them take her.

The woman called Claire entered carrying a paper cup of water.

"You could have left it alone," Claire said.

"You could let me go."

"That stopped being my decision yesterday."

Mara watched her. On Claire's wrist was a small crescent tattoo, the kind people got on impulse and regretted later. Claire had dressed in Mara's uniform and pushed the cart while Mara lay curled beneath the sheets.

"Where am I?" Mara asked.

"Somewhere your boss doesn't visit."

A low horn sounded through the walls. Not a car horn. A ship, far away.

Mara closed her eyes. There were only a few Northline sites within earshot of the port, and she'd helped clean the books for one of them.

"You aren't being paid enough for this," Mara said.

Claire laughed once. "You have no idea what I'm being paid."

"Tell Gideon that the files aren't where he thinks."

The laugh stopped.

Mara knew she'd hit something. She had spent nine months comparing cleaning schedules with electronic payroll reports. Northline paid wages to employees who were missing, charged the hotel for extra shifts no one had worked, and withheld the passports of workers who had come seeking honest jobs.

When she reported it, the complaint vanished. When she tried again, someone followed her home.

She had continued because a cleaner named Amara had begged her not to stop.

"My sister went to work one Tuesday," Amara had said. "They told me she quit. She never came back for her shoes."

Now Mara wondered if Amara was alive.

Claire knelt and lowered her voice. "Your daughter is still at the hotel. You can keep her safe if you record the confession they wrote for you."

"A confession to what?"

"Stealing payroll information and blackmailing management."

Mara looked toward the door. "And if I refuse?"

Claire reached into her jacket, withdrew a phone, and showed Mara a photograph.

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Sophie stood beside a dark van.

Mara had never felt a colder kind of rage.