Chapter 6 - People Who Clean Up After the Rich

Miles pulled the fire extinguisher from the wall. I slipped beneath the desk and called Kim on another line. The man at the door rattled his keys.

"Mrs. Mercer, we can make this easy."

"Funny," I called back. "Real cops usually know my first name."

The lock turned. Miles discharged the extinguisher as the door swung inward. White powder filled the office. We slipped past the coughing man, ran through the laundry, and nearly collided with Nina Reyes, the night union steward.

"Vivian Bell?" she said. "Your father used to buy me breakfast after double shifts."

"Can you get us somewhere safe?"

She eyed the fake officer stumbling out behind us. "Honey, I can do better."

Nina hit a button. A heavy industrial laundry door rolled shut, separating us from the man. Then she led us beneath the sorting conveyor to a break room where six employees watched the monitor showing the ballroom.

"Voss announced a vote tomorrow," Nina said. "Says the employees' trust already approved selling. We never voted."

"I know," I said. "I think someone forged your signatures."

Nina's face hardened. "My aunt spent forty years washing sheets here. She retired with six hundred dollars in a pension that was supposed to pay her eighteen hundred a month. She blamed herself for not saving enough."

"She didn't fail," I said. "Somebody stole from her."

One of the dishwashers opened a battered notebook. For years the staff had kept their own record of deductions. It listed amounts missing from paychecks, names of trustees never elected, and complaints management had ignored.

"Can I photograph this?"

"Take the book," Nina answered. "Make somebody listen."

A young busboy rushed into the room, gasping. "They found Inez. In the loading bay. She's alive."

Relief nearly knocked me off my feet.

"But there's something else," he said. "Mr. Voss ordered security to clear the entire seventeenth floor. He says a gas line is leaking."

Miles swore. "There's no gas service on that floor."

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Nina looked toward the ceiling as an alarm chirped once, then stopped.

"Then what's he planning to blow up?" she asked.