Chapter 3 - The Badge From the Dead
Odessa replayed the video three times.
Each time the same image appeared.
Graham Pike.
General manager of the Whitcomb Grand.
A respected executive who had worked for the Whitcomb family for almost twenty years.
And clipped to his jacket was a faded blue employee badge.
CALLAWAY, ELEANOR.
Odessa’s mother.
She knew every scratch on that badge.
Her mother had kept it in a kitchen drawer for years after leaving hotel work.
Odessa had found it again while cleaning out her belongings after the funeral.
Then it had disappeared.
She had assumed Theo had misplaced it.
Now it was on a man standing beside Adrian Whitcomb’s car on the night someone tried to kill him.
“Odessa?”
Adrian said.
She realized she had gone silent.
“That badge belonged to my mother.”
Russell’s face tightened.
Adrian turned toward her.
“Your mother worked here?”
“Years ago.”
“What department?”
“Housekeeping.”
“For how long?”
“Almost fifteen years.”
Russell suddenly looked interested.
Too interested.
“What was her name?”
“Eleanor Callaway.”
Russell closed his eyes.
That frightened Odessa more than anything else.
“You know it,” she said.
Russell said nothing.
Adrian stepped toward his voice.
“Answer her.”
Russell looked trapped.
Finally he said, “Eleanor filed a complaint.”
Odessa’s pulse jumped.
“What complaint?”
“Financial irregularities.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Odessa shook her head.
“My mother cleaned rooms.”
“She also supervised executive suites.”
Adrian leaned on his cane.
“What did she find?”
Russell laughed softly.
“You truly don’t know?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“Russell.”
“Your father buried it.”
The words landed differently.
Adrian’s head turned slightly.
“My father?”
Russell nodded despite Adrian being unable to see him.
“Charles Whitcomb received Eleanor’s complaint personally. She claimed hotel vendor accounts were being used to route money through shell companies.”
Odessa remembered her mother coming home late.
Whispering on the phone.
Locking documents in a drawer.
Then quitting without explanation.
She had been seventeen.
Her mother had said only, Some jobs cost more than they pay.
“Who controlled those vendor accounts?” Adrian asked.
Russell looked toward the laptop.
“Graham Pike.”
Odessa felt sick.
“And my mother?”
“She withdrew the complaint.”
“No.”
Russell blinked.
Odessa knew that much.
“She wouldn’t.”
“You barely knew what she was doing here.”
“I knew her.”
Russell’s expression shifted.
“She withdrew it after meeting your father.”
Adrian asked, “Why?”
“I was not in the room.”
Odessa looked at the badge on the frozen video.
“Then why would Graham have this?”
No one answered.
Her phone rang.
This time the number was not hidden.
Theo.
Odessa answered immediately.
“Theo?”
Silence.
Then breathing.
Wrong breathing.
Not her brother’s.
A man spoke.
“Your brother is fine.”
Odessa went cold.
“Who is this?”
“You took something that doesn’t belong to you.”
Her eyes moved to the laptop.
The memory card.
“What did you do to Theo?”
“Nothing yet.”
Adrian heard enough to understand.
“Put it on speaker.”
Odessa did.
The man continued.
“Bring the card to the employee parking garage. Level three. Twenty minutes.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“You’re speaking to Adrian Whitcomb.”
A pause.
Then a laugh.
“I know.”
“Touch her brother and I will spend everything I have finding you.”
“That’s the problem, Mr. Whitcomb. You don’t know how much you have anymore.”
The call ended.
Odessa grabbed her coat from the chair.
Adrian caught the sound.
“You’re not going alone.”
“It’s my brother.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not debating this.”
“Neither am I.”
Russell moved toward them.
“If Theo has been taken, call the police.”
Odessa turned on him.
“And tell them what? That the hotel’s general manager might have sabotaged a billionaire’s car eleven months ago while wearing my dead mother’s badge?”
“Yes.”
“By the time they believe us, my brother could be dead.”
Adrian held out his hand.
“The card.”
Odessa hesitated.
“Give it to me.”
She did.
He slipped it inside his suit jacket.
Then he reached toward the desk.
“Laptop.”
She placed it in his hand.
He closed it.
“Russell.”
“Yes?”
“If you leave this room, call Malcolm, or warn Graham, Odessa gives the audio to every news organization in the country.”
Russell stared.
“You would destroy the company.”
Adrian’s face became hard.
“No. The people stealing from it did that.”
He turned toward Odessa.
“Take me downstairs.”
They used the private elevator.
Odessa stayed beside him.
For the first several floors, neither spoke.
Then Adrian said, “You can leave me out of this.”
“What?”
“Get your brother. Take the card. Disappear.”
She stared at him.
“You think I’d do that?”
“I think you met me thirty minutes ago.”
“And someone tried to drug you thirty minutes ago.”
“That is not an argument for staying.”
“It is to me.”
Adrian leaned his head back against the elevator wall.
“You’re either unusually brave or catastrophically bad at self-preservation.”
“My mother used to say the same thing.”
The elevator chimed.
Parking level three.
The doors opened.
Concrete.
Fluorescent lights.
Rows of cars.
Too quiet.
Odessa whispered, “Stay close.”
He smiled faintly.
“That seems to be becoming your phrase.”
They moved between vehicles.
Adrian’s cane tapped softly.
Odessa scanned every column.
No Theo.
No stranger.
Then her phone buzzed.
HEAD TO ROW G.
They followed.
A single black sedan waited near the far wall.
Trunk closed.
Engine running.
Odessa stopped.
“The car is here.”
“Anyone inside?”
“Driver’s seat empty.”
“Other cars?”
“None close.”
A sound came from the trunk.
Three knocks.
Odessa ran.
“Theo!”
She grabbed the trunk handle.
Locked.
Adrian shouted, “Wait.”
Too late.
The trunk popped open remotely.
Odessa pulled it up.
Theo lay inside.
Hands tied.
Mouth taped.
Alive.
She reached for him.
A hiss came from beneath the car.
Adrian heard it before she did.
“Odessa!”
He grabbed her uniform and pulled.
A cloud of white vapor erupted from the trunk.
Odessa fell backward against him.
Adrian dragged her away.
Theo began coughing violently.
“Gas!”
Odessa covered her mouth.
Adrian pulled his jacket over his face.
They moved blindly—one literally, one through burning eyes.
Odessa crawled back toward the trunk.
“Theo!”
She reached inside and grabbed his shirt.
Adrian found her shoulder.
Together they pulled Theo out.
They stumbled behind a concrete pillar.
The vapor spread low across the garage floor.
Theo coughed until he vomited.
Odessa ripped the tape from his mouth.
“Who did this?”
Theo gasped.
“Two men.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they say anything?”
Theo’s eyes filled with fear.
“They kept asking about Mom.”
Odessa froze.
“What?”
“They said she stole something years ago.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Theo looked at Adrian.
Then back at Odessa.
“They searched the apartment.”
Odessa’s heart stopped.
“For what?”
Theo swallowed.
“Mom’s sewing box.”
Odessa stared.
Their mother’s old wooden sewing box.
Stored beneath Odessa’s bed.
The one thing she had refused to throw away.
“What was in it?” Adrian asked.
“Thread,” Odessa said automatically.
Then she remembered.
The false bottom.
As a child, she had watched her mother press two corners and lift a hidden panel.
Her mother had stored birthday money there.
Later, after quitting the hotel, she had forbidden Odessa to touch the box.
Odessa stood.
“We have to get home.”
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
“My mother hid something.”
“And the people who took Theo know it.”
“Exactly.”
“Which means they may already be waiting.”
Theo wiped his mouth.
“They took the box.”
Odessa stared.
“What?”
“They found it.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Then what do they still want?”
Theo looked ashamed.
“I switched it.”
Odessa blinked.
“You what?”
“They were tearing the apartment apart. Before they got into your room, I remembered Mom showing me the bottom once.”
He reached inside his shoe.
From beneath the insole, he pulled a folded piece of paper.
Odessa took it.
Old.
Yellowed.
Covered with numbers.
Adrian asked, “What is it?”
She unfolded it fully.
At the top, in her mother’s handwriting, were four words.
FOR ADRIAN WHITCOMB ONLY.
Odessa read them aloud.
Adrian went silent.
Theo pointed lower.
“There’s more.”
Rows of account numbers.
Dates.
Dollar amounts.
Initials.
And at the bottom, one sentence:
IF CHARLES REFUSES, FIND HIS SON.
Adrian’s breathing changed.
“My father knew.”
Odessa looked at him.
“Maybe.”
“No. He knew.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Security.
Police.
Someone was coming.
Odessa looked toward the ramp.
Headlights appeared.
A black SUV descended toward them.
Adrian lifted his cane.
Theo backed against the pillar.
The SUV stopped twenty feet away.
The rear door opened.
A woman stepped out.
Adrian heard her heels on concrete.
His face changed before she spoke.
“Adrian,” she said.
He went completely still.
Odessa looked between them.
“Who is she?”
May you like
Adrian’s voice was barely audible.
“My sister.”
