Chapter 7 - The Floor That Wasn't Supposed to Burn

The hotel didn't use gas on seventeen. It did have an electrical room beside Suite 1704, and a stack of archived contracts behind a temporary wall. Miles had designed that renovation himself.

"If they torch the records, Voss calls it an accident," he said.

Detective Kim called back. Officers had recovered Inez from loading bay three. She was bruised but conscious, and on her way to a hospital. Pike had disappeared.

"You two get out of that building," Kim ordered. "Fire crews are responding to the alarm."

I glanced at Nina and the workers crowded around the screen. "Not until everyone is clear."

We pulled the nearest alarm station. Sirens burst into life. Guests began filing from the ballroom, annoyed about their interrupted champagne. Nina organized the staff into teams and sent them toward exits with flashlights.

Miles and I climbed to sixteen to check the service corridor below the archive. Smoke seeped beneath a door. My throat tightened.

"We cannot go in," Miles said. "Not without air."

Then we heard a small, sharp knock. A woman was trapped on the other side.

"Help! The door won't open!"

Miles tried the handle. The emergency release had been wired shut from outside. He broke the plastic cover with the extinguisher and freed the latch. A young seamstress staggered out coughing, clutching a cardboard evidence box to her chest.

"They told me to bring these downstairs," she wheezed. "Then somebody locked me in."

Inside were payroll ledgers, board minutes, and a stack of letters signed by my father. The top page carried his handwriting.

If this reaches Vivian, do not trust the certified death time.

Footsteps thundered on the stairs. Firefighters took the seamstress and box while Kim's patrol officers secured the corridor. For the first time that night, I let myself believe help had arrived.

But beneath the last page lay a photograph: my father with Voss, Delaney's mother, and Miles in the hallway outside 1704.

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The back was dated the morning after my father's supposed death.

"Miles," I whispered. "Why is my father standing in a photograph taken the next day?"