Chapter 6 - What Elaine Had Been Hiding
Mara stared at the photograph.
“No.”
Adrian took the phone.
Ortiz looked over his shoulder.
The image had been taken inside the Halcyon.
Room Seventeen.
Except there was no Room Seventeen in the modern hotel.
Not officially.
“Elaine was under protection,” Mara said.
Ortiz immediately contacted her team.
A reply came thirty seconds later.
Elaine was gone.
The officer outside her room had received a false reassignment message.
Someone had known the operation's internal procedures.
Mara thought of Daniel.
“Where is Daniel?”
Adrian called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Mara's anger returned.
“I knew it.”
Ortiz stopped her.
“We don't know that.”
“I do.”
“No. You suspect it.”
Mara hated the distinction.
Because Ortiz was right.
They returned to the Halcyon.
Police controlled the private floors now.
Adrian led them through an old service corridor behind the ballroom.
Thomas had explained before disappearing that the original Room Seventeen had been sealed during renovations.
The door still existed behind a decorative wall.
Workers removed the panel.
There it was.
Mara's pulse accelerated.
The door was unlocked.
Adrian pushed it open.
Thomas sat in a chair.
Untied.
Alone.
Mara stopped.
The photograph had been staged.
Thomas stood.
“Thank God.”
“Where's Elaine?”
“She left.”
“With Daniel?”
Thomas frowned.
“Daniel?”
Mara showed him the photograph.
Thomas stared.
“That wasn't taken tonight.”
“What?”
He pointed at his tie.
“I haven't owned that tie in ten years.”
Ortiz took the phone.
“Manipulated image?”
“Or old photograph,” Adrian said.
Thomas nodded.
“Elaine and I came here ten years ago.”
Mara stared at him.
“Why?”
“To search.”
“For what?”
Thomas looked around the room.
The apartment had been preserved beneath dust sheets.
A narrow bed.
Desk.
Wardrobe.
Small kitchen.
And a faded patch of wallpaper where a crib had once stood.
“For whatever Elena left behind.”
“Did you find anything?”
“No.”
Mara took out the steel key.
Thomas went pale.
“Where did you get that?”
“Elena gave it to me.”
“She gave you that?”
“You recognize it?”
Thomas nodded slowly.
“Alessandro had one.”
Adrian looked at him.
“My father?”
“And Gabriel Voss had the other.”
Mara looked down.
A.V.
“Then what does A.V. mean?”
Thomas crossed to the desk.
He pulled open a drawer.
Empty.
Then another.
Empty.
He pressed the wooden base of the third.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was an envelope.
Adrian stared at Thomas.
“You said you found nothing.”
“I never knew this was here.”
The envelope was addressed:
TO A.V. AND M.E.E.
Adrian Vale.
Mara Elise Ellis.
Mara looked at Adrian.
“How could Elena know your surname?”
Adrian had changed it as an adult.
Thomas shook his head.
“She couldn't.”
“Then this was written later.”
Mara opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter.
Mara read aloud.
“If you are reading this together, then Victor finally made the mistake I spent years waiting for.”
She continued.
“Adrian, your father protected my daughter when he had every reason to protect himself instead. Mara, Elaine gave you the life I could not.”
Mara's voice faltered.
She kept reading.
“Neither of you owes your parents obedience for their sacrifices or forgiveness for their mistakes.”
Adrian's expression changed.
The sentence seemed written for both of them.
“There are two ledgers because there were two investigations. Alessandro recorded the people he protected. I recorded the people Victor controlled.”
Mara looked toward the books.
“The missing page exists, but Victor misunderstood its purpose.”
Adrian leaned closer.
Mara continued.
“It does not prove ownership of Hale Meridian.”
Thomas frowned.
“Then what does?”
“The original incorporation agreement.”
Mara turned the page.
“Gabriel found it before he disappeared. Victor forged the replacement. The original is in a vault that requires two keys.”
Mara held up the steel key.
“One.”
Adrian stared.
“And the other?”
The letter answered.
“Alessandro kept Gabriel's second key after Gabriel's death.”
Mara stopped.
“My father died?”
Thomas looked down.
Elena's letter continued.
“Gabriel was killed before Mara was born. Victor ordered it.”
Mara closed her eyes.
A father she had discovered only hours earlier was already gone.
She had no memories to lose.
Yet grief came anyway.
Strange grief.
Grief for a life that might have existed.
She continued.
“Alessandro spent the rest of his life preserving Gabriel's evidence. He intended Adrian to finish what both men began.”
Adrian sat down.
His father had left him a mission without ever explaining it.
Mara understood the cruelty of that.
Parents could love their children and still leave them terrible burdens.
“Where is the second key?” Ortiz asked.
Mara turned the page.
One final sentence:
ADRIAN HAS BEEN CARRYING IT SINCE HIS FATHER'S FUNERAL.
Everyone looked at him.
Adrian frowned.
“I don't have a key.”
Thomas looked at his wrist.
The watch.
Adrian slowly removed it.
His father had given it to him before dying.
A heavy mechanical watch with an engraved back.
Thomas examined it.
“May I?”
Adrian handed it over.
Thomas pressed the crown and twisted.
The back released.
Inside was a flat steel insert.
A key.
Mara placed hers beside it.
Perfect mirror images.
A.V.
G.V.
Adrian looked at her.
“We have both.”
Ortiz stepped forward.
“Then the vault becomes evidence. Nobody opens it without law enforcement present.”
Adrian nodded.
“Agreed.”
Mara did too.
Thomas suddenly looked toward the doorway.
“Where is Elaine?”
Nobody answered.
Mara's phone rang.
Daniel.
She answered.
“Where are you?”
His breathing was ragged.
“Mara, don't open the vault.”
“Where is Elaine?”
“With me.”
Mara's grip tightened.
“Put her on.”
Elaine's voice came through.
“Mara.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did Daniel take you?”
“No. I went with him.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor isn't trying to open the vault anymore.”
Mara looked at Adrian.
“What is he trying to do?”
Elaine began crying.
“Destroy it.”
Ortiz immediately started issuing orders.
“Where?”
“The old Marlowe terminal.”
“We were just there.”
“Not the building,” Elaine said. “Under it.”
A deep vibration shook the hotel room.
Mara looked around.
“What was that?”
Adrian went to the window.
Far across the city, near the river, orange light rose into the sky.
The terminal.
Mara stared.
Victor was burning it.
Ortiz rushed for the door.
Then Daniel spoke through the phone.
“There's another way into the vault.”
Adrian turned.
“Where?”
Daniel hesitated.
“From the Halcyon.”
Thomas went completely still.
Adrian noticed.
“You knew.”
Thomas backed toward the wall.
“No.”
“Thomas.”
The older man's eyes moved to Room Seventeen's wardrobe.
Mara followed his gaze.
Adrian opened it.
Nothing but old wood.
He pushed against the rear panel.
It moved.
Behind it was a narrow steel door.
Two keyholes sat side by side.
Mara approached.
A.V.
G.V.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time a live video appeared.
Victor Hale stood somewhere underground.
He smiled into the camera.
Then he turned it.
Elaine and Daniel were standing behind a locked steel gate.
Victor looked back at Mara through the screen.
“You have ten minutes.”
The video shifted.
A digital timer appeared beside several fuel canisters.
09:59.
09:58.
09:57.
May you like
Then Victor said:
“Bring both keys, Mara, or decide which truth you're willing to bury with your mother.”
