Chapter 1 - Forty-Five Floors Above Chicago
“Call 911!” I shouted as I pressed down on the stranger’s chest.
Security Director Frank Delaney dropped beside me with a yellow AED case.
A platinum access card had fallen from the man’s jacket.
Three characters were engraved beneath his photograph: C-01.
The man under my hands was the company owner.
I did not understand that immediately.
At 11:47 p.m., titles did not matter.
Pulse did.
Breath did.
Time did.
“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.”
I leaned closer to the stranger’s mouth.
Nothing.
“Again,” Frank said.
My palms returned to the center of his chest.
The man’s white shirt had been pulled open beneath his expensive navy jacket. His tie lay crooked against the marble. One black leather shoe had come halfway off when he collapsed.
I had seen him only seconds earlier.
I was pushing my housekeeping cart toward the service elevator when the gold doors opened.
He stepped out alone.
Tall. Dark hair. Expensive suit. Phone in one hand.
He looked like every executive who had ever walked through Bellweather Tower without seeing the woman emptying the trash can beside him.
Then he stopped.
His phone fell.
He touched his chest.
And his knees buckled.
I remembered the sound of his shoulder hitting the wall.
I remembered his eyes searching for something before they rolled backward.
I remembered thinking, Move.
So I moved.
Three years earlier, my mother had made me take a CPR course because she said everyone should know what to do when life suddenly became smaller than a minute.
I had laughed at her.
Now I counted compressions while the security director spoke into his radio.
“Medical emergency, executive floor. Male, approximately thirty-five. Unresponsive. AED being applied.”
Frank tore open the package.
I sat back only long enough for him to attach the pads.
The machine spoke in its calm electronic voice.
Analyzing rhythm.
Do not touch patient.
I pulled my hands away.
My fingers shook.
Frank stared at the screen.
I stared at the man.
He looked younger when he was unconscious.
Maybe thirty-three.
Thirty-five at most.
His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. There was a small scar beneath his jaw. His face had none of the softness people had when they slept.
It was frighteningly still.
Shock advised.
“Clear,” Frank said.
His hand hovered over the button.
I moved back.
The stranger’s body jerked.
For one awful second, nothing happened.
Then the machine instructed us to resume CPR.
I started again.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on.”
Frank glanced toward the elevators.
“Paramedics are coming.”
“They’re not here.”
“I know.”
“Then help me count.”
Frank did.
We reached thirty.
Again.
And again.
On the fourth cycle, something changed.
His fingers moved.
Barely.
I stopped.
“Did you see that?”
“Check breathing.”
I leaned close.
A shallow gasp touched my cheek.
“Oh God.”
Frank put two fingers near his neck.
“I’ve got something.”
I nearly collapsed.
Instead, I kept my hand on the stranger’s shoulder.
“Sir?”
His eyelids fluttered.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
No answer.
But he breathed again.
A terrible, broken sound.
It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
The paramedics arrived less than three minutes later, though it felt like half an hour.
Suddenly the quiet lobby filled with people.
Blue gloves.
Medical bags.
Questions.
“Who started compressions?”
“I did.”
“How long was he down?”
“Maybe thirty seconds before I reached him.”
“Any known medical history?”
“I don’t know him.”
That was when Frank looked at me strangely.
“You really don’t?”
“No.”
He glanced toward the platinum card on the floor.
One paramedic picked it up and handed it to Frank.
Frank’s face changed.
“What?” I asked.
He did not answer.
The paramedics lifted the man onto a stretcher.
One of them read the card.
His eyebrows rose.
“Is this—”
“Yes,” Frank said sharply.
The paramedic stopped talking.
I stood slowly.
My knees hurt.
There was blood on the inside of my lower lip where I had bitten it.
My uniform was damp with sweat.
My hands felt numb.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Frank waited until the stretcher disappeared into the elevator.
Then he looked at me.
“Adrian Vale.”
The name meant nothing for one second.
Then it landed.
Vale.
Vale Meridian Group.
The company whose silver letters were mounted across the lobby downstairs.
The company that owned Bellweather Tower.
The company that employed the cleaning contractor that employed me.
“That Adrian Vale?”
Frank nodded.
“He’s CEO and majority owner.”
I stared at the closed elevator doors.
“I cracked his ribs.”
“You probably saved his life.”
“Probably?”
Frank’s expression tightened.
“Don’t worry about the ribs.”
That was not reassuring.
I looked at my cart.
A spray bottle leaned against a stack of microfiber cloths as though nothing had happened.
“I should finish my floor.”
Frank actually laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he could not believe what I had said.
“Your shift is over.”
“My supervisor will write me up if—”
“No one is writing you up tonight, Miss…”
“Lena Ortiz.”
He repeated it.
“Lena Ortiz.”
No executive had said my full name inside that building before.
Frank reached for his radio.
Then paused.
His eyes moved toward the black security dome above the elevator.
“What?”
He did not answer.
“Frank?”
He walked beneath the camera and looked up.
The small green indicator light was dark.
“That camera working earlier?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
He pressed his radio.
“Control, check camera forty-five east.”
Static.
Then a voice.
“Forty-five east feed went offline at 11:39.”
Frank looked at his watch.
Eight minutes before Adrian collapsed.
“When did it come back?”
“It hasn’t.”
A strange coldness moved through me.
“It’s probably broken,” I said.
Frank did not look convinced.
“Maybe.”
Two police officers arrived.
They asked me to sit.
I told the story three times.
I explained where I had been.
What Adrian had done.
How he fell.
What I touched.
What I moved.
One officer asked whether Adrian had said anything before collapsing.
“No.”
I hesitated.
“Actually…”
Frank looked at me.
“What?” the officer asked.
“He tried.”
“Tried to say what?”
“I couldn’t hear him.”
“Think.”
I closed my eyes.
The memory returned in pieces.
Adrian’s phone hitting the floor.
His hand grabbing my sleeve.
His mouth forming a word.
Not help.
Something else.
“Maybe a name,” I said.
“What name?”
“I don’t know.”
The officer wrote something down.
At 1:26 a.m., they finally let me leave.
Frank insisted on walking me to the employee entrance.
My winter coat felt too thin.
Snow blew sideways across Wacker Drive.
Chicago was almost silent.
“Lena.”
I stopped.
Frank stood under the awning.
“Don’t discuss tonight with anyone.”
“Why?”
“Until we know what happened.”
“You think somebody did something to him?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He looked back through the glass doors.
“Go home.”
I took the train to Pilsen.
I told myself I would sleep.
I did not.
At 3:14 a.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
“Hello?”
No one answered.
“Hello?”
Breathing.
Then the call ended.
Thirty seconds later, a text arrived.
NO CALLER ID.
You should have let him die.
I stared at the screen.
Another message appeared.
This one included a photograph.
It showed me kneeling over Adrian Vale.
Taken from inside the forty-fifth-floor lobby.
From an angle where no security camera existed.
Then a third message came through.
It contained my home address.
May you like
And four words.
We know where you live.
