Chapter 3 - The Name on the Reservation
The lights returned twenty seconds later.
Claudia was still missing.
The security room had been emptied.
The camera recordings from the previous six hours were gone.
Someone had entered Crystal House during the confusion, removed the owner, erased evidence, and disappeared without being noticed.
Victor did not shout.
He became quieter.
Molly was learning that silence was his most dangerous mood.
“Everyone goes home,” he ordered.
Adrian looked at him.
“What about me?”
“You’re coming with us.”
“I’m not going to the Marlowe.”
Victor stared at him.
“That wasn’t a request.”
Molly stepped forward.
“I’m going too.”
Victor turned.
“No.”
“The caller specifically said to bring me.”
“That is exactly why you’re not going.”
“If you arrive without me, Claudia may die.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Molly continued.
“And whoever planned this already knows where my mother lives. Hiding won’t make me safe.”
“You think walking into their trap will?”
“No.”
“Then stay out of it.”
Molly folded her arms.
“You would be dead if I stayed out of things tonight.”
Adrian looked away.
Victor stared at her for a long moment.
Then, unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth moved.
Not a smile.
Almost.
“You always argue like this?”
“When people are wrong.”
Victor nodded toward the door.
“Stay beside me.”
They left Crystal House at eleven-fifteen.
Molly had never ridden in an armored car before.
She knew it was armored because Victor’s driver told them after Molly asked why the doors weighed so much.
Victor gave the driver an annoyed look.
The driver shrugged.
“She asked.”
Molly sat opposite Victor and Adrian.
Two other vehicles followed.
Evelyn had been moved to a secure location.
Elias stayed with her.
Molly wanted to go to her.
Every instinct told her to forget Victor, Claudia, Room 317, and mysterious forks.
But she had seen Claudia’s photograph.
She could not walk away.
Victor examined the restaurant reservation sheet again.
“Why are these three men circled?”
Molly looked.
Victor Hastings.
Anthony Bell.
Judge Robert Kellerman.
Adrian shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Victor looked at him.
“You prepared special courses for all three?”
“Yes, but that’s normal. VIP tables.”
“Were their utensils changed?”
“Only Victor’s.”
Molly asked, “Who are Bell and Kellerman?”
Victor answered.
“Anthony Bell manages several shipping companies.”
“And Kellerman?”
“A federal judge.”
Molly looked at him.
“Why would the same person want a mafia boss, a businessman, and a judge?”
Victor raised an eyebrow.
“At least you don’t pretend not to know what people call me.”
“You don’t seem like the type who appreciates pretending.”
“You’re learning.”
Adrian suddenly leaned forward.
“The reservation.”
They looked at him.
“What?”
“The three names.”
He pointed.
“They were not originally booked separately.”
Molly frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the system this morning. All three reservations were entered by the same concierge account.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Whose?”
Adrian thought.
“D. Vale.”
Victor stopped moving.
Molly noticed immediately.
“Who is D. Vale?”
Victor did not answer.
His driver looked into the mirror.
Victor stared back.
Neither spoke.
Finally Molly said, “Dominic?”
Victor looked at her.
She remembered hearing the name from staff.
Dominic Vale had eaten at Crystal House with Victor twice.
Elegant.
Friendly.
Always smiling.
Victor’s closest associate.
“I’ve served him.”
Victor folded the reservation paper.
“Dominic handles my legitimate businesses.”
“Only the legitimate ones?”
Victor almost smiled again.
“Careful.”
Molly looked out the window.
The abandoned Marlowe Hotel appeared ahead.
Dark brick.
Boarded windows.
A faded sign above the entrance.
They parked one block away.
Victor’s men entered first.
No lights.
No movement.
At eleven-fifty-eight, Molly walked into the hotel beside Victor.
Adrian followed.
The lobby smelled of dust and old wood.
Their flashlights swept across cracked tile.
The elevator doors were chained shut.
They took the stairs.
Room 317 was on the third floor.
The hallway looked untouched for years.
Molly heard every breath.
Every footstep.
At the end of the corridor, 317 stood open.
Victor stopped.
His face became unreadable.
Molly whispered, “What?”
He looked at the doorway.
“I haven’t been here since I was twenty-six.”
They entered.
A table had been placed in the center.
Two chairs.
One lamp.
One photograph.
Victor approached.
The photo showed three younger men standing outside Crystal House fifteen years earlier.
Molly recognized Victor immediately.
Beside him stood Anthony Bell.
Judge Kellerman was younger but recognizable.
The third man was Victor’s father.
Molly stared.
“These people all knew each other.”
Victor turned the photograph over.
Handwritten words covered the back.
FOUR MEN MADE THE DEAL.
ONE MAN DIED.
THREE MEN LIED.
ONE WOMAN REMEMBERED.
Molly read the final sentence twice.
“One woman?”
Victor looked around the room.
“Claudia.”
A sound came from the bathroom.
Victor’s men raised their weapons.
Molly’s heart jumped.
The door opened.
Claudia stumbled out.
Her hands were bound.
Her mouth was covered with tape.
They freed her.
She clutched Victor’s coat.
“He knows.”
“Who?”
Claudia began crying.
“He knows what your father did.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“What did my father do?”
Claudia looked at Molly.
That was strange.
Why Molly?
Claudia whispered, “Ask her mother.”
Molly went still.
“What?”
“Ask Evelyn.”
“My mother never knew Victor’s father.”
Claudia shook her head.
“Yes, she did.”
Molly stepped back.
“No.”
Claudia looked ashamed.
“She worked here.”
“At the Marlowe?”
“No.”
Claudia swallowed.
“At Crystal House.”
Molly laughed nervously.
“That’s impossible. Mom was a school secretary.”
“Afterward.”
“After what?”
“After your father disappeared.”
Molly froze.
“My father?”
Victor looked sharply at Claudia.
“What does her father have to do with this?”
Claudia closed her eyes.
“Thomas Higgins was the fourth man in that photograph.”
Molly stared at the picture.
Four men.
But only three stood beside Victor’s father.
She looked more closely.
Someone had been cut from the right side.
A thin strip of another suit remained.
“No.”
Claudia nodded.
“Thomas worked for Victor’s father.”
Molly’s breathing became shallow.
“My father died when I was six.”
“That’s what Evelyn told you.”
Molly stumbled backward.
Victor caught her elbow.
She pulled away.
“What are you saying?”
Claudia whispered, “Thomas Higgins did not die when you were six.”
The hallway lights suddenly switched on.
Every bulb.
One after another.
A speaker crackled above them.
A man began clapping slowly.
Victor turned toward the ceiling.
The voice came through.
“Finally.”
Molly recognized it.
She had heard him order whiskey at Crystal House.
Dominic Vale.
“Victor,” Dominic said, “you really should have listened when your father warned you about the Higgins family.”
A door slammed downstairs.
Victor’s men moved toward the stairwell.
Dominic laughed through the speaker.
“You want the truth? Bring Molly to the ballroom.”
Molly looked at Victor.
He shook his head.
May you like
Then Dominic added one more sentence.
“And if she wants to meet the father she buried twenty-four years ago, she should come quickly.”
