Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Hallway
Adrian moved Lily behind him.
The woman stopped twenty feet away.
She appeared to be in her forties, dressed in a gray business suit, carrying a leather folder.
“Mr. Vale.”
“Who are you?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Adrian searched his memory.
Nothing.
Lily whispered behind him.
“She was there.”
Rebecca's eyes shifted toward the girl.
For the first time, her controlled expression cracked.
“Lily?”
Adrian saw recognition.
Real recognition.
“You know her.”
Rebecca lowered the folder.
“I knew her mother.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“Yes. I know Lily.”
Adrian motioned toward an empty private dining room.
“Inside.”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Now.”
They entered.
Adrian closed the door.
“What happened to Sarah Carter?”
Rebecca looked at Lily.
“Not in front of her.”
Lily stepped around Adrian.
“Everyone always says that.”
Her voice trembled.
“My grandma said it. The police said it. People from the hotel said it. Everybody keeps saying I'm too young.”
Rebecca looked stricken.
Lily continued.
“I'm thirteen now. Where is my mom?”
Rebecca sat slowly.
“I don't know.”
Lily's shoulders fell.
Adrian watched Rebecca.
“But you know something.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I was assistant compliance director here four years ago.”
Adrian remembered the position, though not her.
“Sarah came to me with irregular payments. Small at first. Vendor invoices inflated by five or ten percent. Then she found shell companies.”
“How much?”
“At the time? Maybe six million.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“And nobody told me.”
“We tried.”
“The letter.”
Rebecca looked at him sharply.
“You know?”
“Lily told me.”
Rebecca rubbed her forehead.
“Sarah didn't trust the internal chain anymore. She believed somebody close to you was intercepting reports.”
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
“Why?”
“Because she wasn't sure.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“What happened after she mailed the letter?”
“Three days later, she didn't come to work.”
“And you?”
“I was fired the following morning.”
“By Mercer?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Officially, restructuring.”
“Unofficially?”
“A warning.”
Lily spoke.
“You came to our house.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To find Sarah's copies.”
Lily backed away.
“You searched our house.”
“I was trying to protect them.”
“You scared me.”
“I know.”
Rebecca's voice broke.
“I am sorry.”
Adrian interrupted.
“Where are the copies?”
“I never found them.”
Lily looked at her stuffed rabbit.
Adrian noticed.
So did Rebecca.
“What?” Adrian asked.
Lily shook her head.
“Nothing.”
Adrian crouched beside her.
“Lily.”
“My mom told me never to let anyone take Bunny.”
Rebecca stood.
“Sarah used that rabbit?”
Lily clutched it tighter.
Adrian held out his hand.
“I won't take it.”
Lily stared at him.
Then carefully turned the rabbit over.
One seam along its back was different from the others.
Newer thread.
Adrian felt his pulse change.
“May I?”
Lily nodded.
Rebecca found scissors.
Adrian carefully cut three stitches.
Inside the stuffing was a small plastic pouch.
He removed it.
A flash drive.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“Sarah.”
Adrian inserted it into an offline laptop Rebecca had brought.
One folder appeared.
MERIDIAN.
Password protected.
“What would she use?” Adrian asked.
Lily stared at the screen.
“Try my birthday.”
It failed.
“Your grandmother's?”
Failed.
Lily looked at the rabbit.
“Bunny's name.”
“What is it?”
“Hope.”
Adrian typed HOPE.
The folder opened.
Hundreds of documents appeared.
Invoices.
Bank transfers.
Employee names.
Security schedules.
Photographs.
Rebecca whispered, “She kept everything.”
Adrian opened a spreadsheet.
The theft was far larger than six million.
Transfers crossed dozens of companies.
Some appeared legitimate.
Others existed only on paper.
One name repeated constantly.
NORTHSTAR HOSPITALITY CONSULTING.
“Know it?” Adrian asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
Adrian called Victor.
“Find Northstar Hospitality Consulting.”
Victor typed somewhere on the other end.
“Registered in Delaware. Dissolved two years ago.”
“Owner?”
“Hidden behind another LLC.”
“Keep going.”
Adrian opened another document.
It was a scan of Sarah's warning letter.
Mr. Vale,
If you are reading this, I managed to get outside the internal system. Someone with direct access to your executive authorization codes has been approving fraudulent transfers. I don't believe you know. I don't believe Mr. Mercer is acting alone.
Adrian stopped.
Rebecca read over his shoulder.
“Mercer.”
Adrian continued.
I found something worse than theft. Some of the companies receiving hotel funds are connected to people from your private organization.
Rebecca looked at Adrian.
She knew.
Perhaps Sarah had known too.
Adrian's legitimate world and criminal world had been deliberately connected.
Someone wasn't merely stealing from him.
Someone was using his own network to hide it.
His phone rang.
Victor.
“Northstar ownership traces through five shells.”
“To?”
“Still working.”
“Faster.”
“There's something else. The deletion stopped.”
“Why?”
“Whoever was doing it logged out.”
“Location?”
“Inside the hotel.”
Adrian's gaze sharpened.
“Where?”
“Executive floor.”
Daniel Mercer occupied that floor.
Adrian turned toward Rebecca.
“Stay with Lily.”
“No,” Lily said.
Adrian looked at her.
“I've spent four years waiting.”
“You're thirteen.”
“And she's my mother.”
Adrian wanted to argue.
Then he remembered the girl standing in the rain holding discarded bread because every adult who should have protected her had failed.
“You stay behind me.”
They took the private elevator.
The executive floor was empty.
Mercer's assistant's desk had been abandoned.
A coffee cup still steamed.
Adrian approached Mercer's office.
The door was open.
Inside, the desk drawers had been emptied.
Computer gone.
Family photographs gone.
Safe open.
Mercer had run.
Adrian called Victor.
“Find him.”
“Already tracking his phone.”
“Where?”
A pause.
“That's strange.”
“What?”
“His phone is still in the hotel.”
Adrian heard a sound behind them.
A service elevator.
Ding.
Doors opened.
No one inside.
Only a phone lying on the floor.
Mercer's.
Adrian picked it up.
A new message appeared.
UNKNOWN:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE GIRL OUTSIDE.
Lily saw it.
Adrian's face hardened.
Another message arrived.
SARAH CARTER MADE THE SAME MISTAKE YOU'RE MAKING.
Then a photograph appeared.
It had been taken minutes earlier.
Adrian and Lily sitting together at breakfast.
Someone had been watching them.
Rebecca whispered, “They're still here.”
A noise came from Mercer's office.
Adrian turned.
The computer monitor he thought had been removed suddenly flickered to life behind the desk.
A live security feed appeared.
Basement level.
A man sat tied to a chair.
Daniel Mercer.
His face was bloody.
His mouth was taped.
Someone stepped into frame behind him.
Only a hand was visible.
It placed a white envelope on Mercer's lap.
Adrian recognized the handwriting.
His own name was written across it.
The warning letter.
The original one.
Then the figure leaned toward the camera.
A distorted voice came through the speakers.
“You finally got your mail, Adrian.”
The basement feed went black.
But before it disappeared, Lily screamed.
May you like
Because behind Daniel Mercer, another prisoner had lifted her face toward the camera.
“Mom?”
