Chapter 2 - The Name in Her Purse
Javier turned first.
Victor moved Khloe behind him.
The fire door opened three inches.
Then stopped.
"Khloe?"
A woman's voice.
Khloe stiffened.
"I know that voice."
Victor caught her wrist before she could move.
"Who?"
"My supervisor's wife."
The door opened wider.
A woman in her forties stepped into the alley.
Her mascara had run beneath her eyes. One heel was broken. Her expensive coat hung open.
"Marianne?"
Khloe pulled free.
Marianne Crane looked at Victor and recoiled.
"You."
Victor didn't move.
Marianne grabbed Khloe.
"We have to leave."
"Where's Elliot?"
Marianne's face collapsed.
"He's gone."
Khloe stared at her.
"What do you mean gone?"
"He knew this would happen."
Victor interrupted.
"Knew what?"
Marianne looked at him with naked hatred.
"He knew eventually your family would find out."
"Find out what?"
She laughed bitterly.
"You really don't know."
Victor disliked those words.
"Explain."
"Elliot discovered money moving through shell companies. Millions at first. Then hundreds of millions."
Khloe shook her head.
"He never told me."
"He couldn't."
Marianne looked at Khloe.
"But he trusted you because you weren't connected to any of them."
"Any of who?"
Marianne's eyes moved to Victor.
"Rossi. Falcone. Beaumont."
Victor's expression hardened.
Beaumont.
The hotel.
"Why Beaumont?"
Marianne looked toward the building.
"Because this place isn't just a hotel."
Victor exchanged a glance with Javier.
Marianne continued.
"Elliot spent eighteen months tracing payments. Every trail eventually returned here."
Khloe clutched her purse.
"Why send me?"
"Because they were watching us."
Marianne reached for Khloe's bag.
"Elliot said he put something inside."
Victor stopped her.
"We searched it."
"You searched the obvious parts."
Marianne grabbed the purse, turned it upside down and ran her thumb beneath the interior seam.
A tiny section separated.
Khloe stared.
She'd carried the purse for years.
She'd never known there was a hidden compartment.
Marianne removed a brass key.
Stamped into it was a number.
Victor knew immediately.
"Hotel room."
Marianne shook her head.
"No guest room at the Beaumont has three-digit brass keys anymore."
"Then what?"
"I don't know."
Victor took it.
Javier examined the engraving.
"Old key."
"Very old," Victor said.
Khloe stared at him.
"That message said you killed Elliot."
"I didn't."
"Convenient."
Victor's eyes met hers.
"If I had killed your supervisor, Khloe, you would never have received his envelope."
She hated that his answer made sense.
Marianne suddenly looked toward the alley entrance.
Headlights appeared.
Javier moved instantly.
"Inside."
They returned through the service door.
Victor led them through the kitchen and down a narrow employee corridor.
Javier spoke quietly into his phone, redirecting his team.
Khloe stayed near Marianne.
Victor noticed her keeping distance from him now.
The message had worked.
That bothered him more than it should have.
They reached an unused conference room.
Javier locked the door.
Victor placed the brass key on the table.
"Everything," he said to Marianne. "Now."
She sat.
"Elliot discovered the account nine months ago. It belonged to your father."
"My father has been dead twelve years."
"I know."
"Then how was money moving?"
"It wasn't."
Marianne looked up.
"Someone was using his identity."
Victor said nothing.
"The account was a marker," she continued. "A doorway into something larger."
"What?"
"A private ledger."
Javier frowned.
"Digital?"
"Partially."
"Where?"
Marianne pointed at the key.
"Elliot believed the original records were somewhere inside this hotel."
Victor turned to Javier.
"Get the old floor plans."
Javier made a call.
Khloe sat opposite Victor.
"You really didn't know?"
"No."
"About any of it?"
"No."
She studied him.
"Why should I believe you?"
"You shouldn't."
That surprised her.
Victor leaned forward.
"Trust isn't something you give because someone asks nicely. Watch what I do. Decide later."
For the first time since the alley, Khloe's expression softened.
Barely.
Javier received a file on his phone.
He zoomed in.
"The Beaumont was renovated seventeen years ago."
"Room 317?"
"Doesn't exist."
Marianne whispered, "I told you."
"But..."
Javier enlarged an older blueprint.
"There was a 317 before renovation."
"Where?"
Javier looked toward the floor.
"Below us."
Victor frowned.
"Basement?"
"Sub-basement."
The Beaumont had never publicly listed a sub-basement.
They found the old service staircase behind a locked maintenance door.
Victor insisted Marianne remain upstairs with two trusted security personnel.
Khloe refused.
"I'm coming."
"No."
"Elliot left the key to me."
"He left it in your purse."
"Which makes it mine."
Victor stared at her.
Khloe stared back.
Javier sighed.
"I already miss the seven minutes when you two didn't know each other."
Victor ignored him.
"Stay behind me."
They descended.
The air changed immediately.
The elegant hotel disappeared.
Concrete walls replaced polished wood.
Old electrical conduit ran along the ceiling.
At the bottom stood a corridor nobody appeared to use.
Doors carried faded brass numbers.
Then 317.
Khloe stopped.
Victor inserted the key.
It turned.
Inside was a room no larger than a storage closet.
Empty shelves.
An old desk.
Dust.
Khloe's shoulders fell.
"Nothing."
Victor didn't believe in empty rooms.
Not when people had died over keys.
He inspected the desk.
One drawer.
Locked.
Javier forced it.
Inside sat a photograph.
Victor picked it up.
Five men stood in front of the Beaumont seventeen years earlier.
One was Victor's father.
Another was the hotel's former owner.
Victor recognized a third.
Councilman Richard Vale.
One of the most powerful political figures in Chicago.
The fourth was unknown.
The fifth made Victor's blood turn cold.
"Elliot," Khloe whispered.
Impossible.
Elliot Crane stood beside Victor's father.
But the photograph was dated seventeen years earlier.
Khloe shook her head.
"Elliot told me he'd never met your family."
Victor turned the photograph over.
Names had been written on the back.
Four names.
Not five.
One had been scratched away.
Below them was a sentence.
THE FIFTH MAN OWNS EVERYTHING.
Javier searched the drawer.
"There's more."
He removed a small recorder.
Victor pressed play.
Static.
Then Elliot Crane's voice.
"If Khloe found this, I failed."
Khloe covered her mouth.
"If Victor Rossi is with her, then I was right about him too."
Victor's jaw tightened.
The recording continued.
"Victor, your father didn't build the system everyone thinks he built. He was trying to destroy it."
Victor stopped breathing.
"Someone betrayed him."
Static crackled.
"The same person has been moving money through the Beaumont ever since."
Khloe looked at Victor.
Elliot's voice became quieter.
"I found his name."
The recording abruptly stopped.
"That's it?" Khloe asked.
Javier turned it over.
A compartment had opened.
Inside was a tiny folded paper.
Victor removed it.
There was one handwritten sentence.
He unfolded it.
Khloe watched his face.
"What does it say?"
Victor read it twice.
Then a sound came from the corridor.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Approaching.
Javier killed the light.
Darkness swallowed the room.
May you like
The footsteps stopped outside Door 317.
Then someone inserted a key from the other side.
