Chapter 2 - Nobody Was Supposed to Be There
Marcus crossed the room first.
"Stay with Ava," he told Emilio.
The guests had finally started moving. Phones were out. Someone was calling hotel security. Someone else was filming Tessa as she screamed that Emilio was dangerous.
Emilio ignored all of it.
The service door opened three inches.
Marcus kicked it wide.
A man in a black catering jacket bolted down the corridor.
"Stop!"
He didn't.
Marcus ran after him.
Emilio followed as far as the doorway, then stopped because Ava's hand was still wrapped around two of his fingers.
The room beyond the door was not a kitchen.
It was a narrow service office with three monitors, a card printer, and a hard-sided equipment case sitting open on a table.
Inside the case were zip ties.
A child-size hooded sweatshirt.
A bottle labeled with Ava's name.
And a printed map of the hotel's underground loading garage.
Emilio felt his stomach turn.
Tessa appeared behind him.
"That isn't ours."
He looked at her.
She saw the bottle.
For the first time that night, real fear crossed her face.
Calvin limped closer. "Emilio, listen to me."
"No."
"You're reading this wrong."
"Ava was locked in a room, and ten feet away somebody had a kit with her name on it."
Calvin lowered his voice. "That equipment could belong to hotel security."
"Zip ties?"
"It's a big event."
"A sweatshirt in my daughter's size?"
Calvin didn't answer.
Ava tugged Emilio's sleeve.
"Daddy?"
He crouched.
She pointed at one of the monitors.
The screens were showing live camera feeds from the gala.
Except one feed was frozen.
It showed the service corridor.
Timestamp: 8:14 p.m.
Ava looked up at him.
"That's when the man took my bracelet."
"What man?"
"The one with the snake ring."
Emilio's pulse jumped.
He knew that ring.
He had seen it every Monday for four years on the hand of Rowan Price, his director of corporate security.
Marcus suddenly returned, breathing hard.
"He got out through the loading dock."
"Did you see his face?"
"No. But he dropped this."
Marcus held up a security badge.
ROWAN PRICE.
Tessa stared at it and whispered, "Oh, God."
Emilio stepped toward her.
"You know something."
"No."
"You just looked like you saw a ghost."
Calvin cut in. "Don't say another word, Tessa."
That was the wrong thing to say.
Emilio's eyes shifted to him.
Ava began pulling at the seam of her dress.
"Daddy, I kept something."
She reached inside the lining and produced a tiny red key.
May you like
Tessa went white.
Then Ava said, "Mommy told me never to let her have it."
