Chapter 2 - The Wrong Side of the Camera
The guards marched Naomi through a service door before the applause started again.
In the corridor, a dishwasher named Theo caught her eye. He'd worked the hotel nearly as long as she had. He lifted his phone a fraction, showing a red recording symbol, before a guard ordered him back to the kitchen.
"I didn't start it," Naomi told the security chief.
Lou Mercer was built like a refrigerator and wore an earpiece too small for his thick neck. "That's not my decision."
"There are cameras in the ballroom. You saw her kick."
"Cameras can be confusing."
"Not when someone's shoe is coming at your eye."
He pushed her into a cramped office that smelled of burnt coffee. On the wall, twelve security feeds showed hotel elevators, halls, and loading docks. One screen was black.
Naomi pointed. "Where's the ballroom?"
"Sit down."
Her manager, Evelyn Price, arrived carrying an envelope. Evelyn had hired Naomi after Rosa's funeral, when Naomi dropped out of nursing school to pay rent and keep her sixteen-year-old sister, Isabel, in school. Now she couldn't meet Naomi's eyes.
"You're suspended pending investigation," Evelyn said.
"An investigation where you shut off the camera?"
"The owner wants you off the property."
"The owner of the hotel or Vanessa Sterling?"
Evelyn's lips tightened. "Please don't make this harder."
Naomi's phone lit up with a text from Isabel: Did you see the foundation commercial? They put Mom on TV. Why?
Another message arrived from an unknown number. It contained a six-second video. Naomi in uniform, her hand flying across Vanessa's cheek. No kick. No words. No context. Beneath it someone had written: VIOLENT HOTEL WORKER SLAPS CHARITY HOST.
"It's already online," Naomi said.
Evelyn sat very still. "Sign this and go home." The paper was an admission that Naomi had physically assaulted a guest without provocation, along with an agreement not to speak publicly.
"No."
"Naomi, your paycheck—"
"You can keep it if the price is a lie."
Evelyn closed her eyes. Outside, a police radio crackled.
Lou took the unsigned statement from the desk. "Officers are here."
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As he reached for Naomi's elbow, a different image flickered across the formerly black security monitor: Vanessa pulling back her leg, her shoe pointed at Naomi's head. It lasted less than a second before the screen went dark again.
Lou stared at it. Then he slowly unplugged the monitor.
