Chapter 10 - Twenty-Seven Seconds of Darkness)
The ballroom remained dark for twenty-seven seconds.
For Nia, it felt like twenty-seven minutes.
Evelyn pulled her between chairs.
Nia fought.
“Let go!”
Music had stopped.
Guests shouted.
Arthur yelled, “Nobody move!”
Daniel heard Nia’s voice.
“Nia!”
Emergency lights flickered on.
Evelyn released her.
Too late.
Daniel saw her hand on the child.
So did Arthur.
Evelyn stepped backward.
“I was trying to keep her from being trampled.”
Nia moved toward Arthur.
“She grabbed me.”
Arthur stood.
His face had become terrifyingly calm.
“Evelyn.”
“What?”
“Sit down.”
“Arthur.”
“Sit.”
She did.
Backup power restored the chandeliers.
Hotel engineers announced that a ballroom circuit had been manually interrupted from a service panel.
Arthur looked at Malcolm.
Malcolm remained blocked by two guards.
“Interesting timing,” Arthur said.
Malcolm said nothing.
Arthur ordered the dessert plate covered.
A hotel physician attending the banquet approached.
“I can secure it until police arrive.”
“Police should already be here.”
Daniel looked ashamed.
Arthur turned to him.
“Explain.”
Daniel inhaled.
“I need to speak with you privately.”
“No.”
“Sir.”
“You will explain here.”
Three hundred people watched.
Daniel looked toward Evelyn.
Then Malcolm.
Finally he said, “James Whitmore asked me to preserve security access records before his death.”
Arthur’s face went white.
“What records?”
“Foundation offices. Medical research files. Executive storage. Room 314.”
Arthur stared.
Daniel continued.
“After James died, Malcolm ordered me to destroy copies.”
Malcolm stood.
“That is a lie.”
Arthur’s guards forced him back into his seat.
Daniel continued.
“I did it.”
Arthur’s voice became quiet.
“Why?”
Daniel explained about his wife.
The medical treatment.
The debt.
The leverage.
Arthur listened without interruption.
When Daniel finished, Arthur asked, “Simone?”
“Malcolm had her held downstairs.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“This is insane.”
Nia shouted, “My mom heard you!”
Evelyn turned.
“Heard what?”
Nia’s eyes narrowed.
She had not said where.
She had not said when.
Arthur noticed.
“So Simone is still in the hotel?” Arthur asked.
Daniel nodded.
“She escaped the maintenance room with me. We separated near the old tunnel.”
Arthur looked at his security team.
“Find her.”
Six men moved.
Nia grabbed Arthur’s sleeve.
“I have something.”
She pulled James’s envelope from inside the jacket.
Arthur saw the handwriting.
For the first time that night, his composure broke.
He took the envelope with both hands.
“Where did you find this?”
“Room 314.”
Arthur sat.
He opened the letter.
As he read, his expression changed line by line.
Evelyn watched him.
Arthur reached the final sentence.
He read it again.
Then he looked at her.
“What compound?”
Evelyn’s face went blank.
Arthur removed the photograph from the envelope.
“James went to the cardiac research center.”
“That proves nothing.”
“He wrote that your brother supplied a compound through foundation contractors.”
“James was paranoid.”
Arthur stood so suddenly his chair fell backward.
“My son wrote this before he died.”
“And he was wrong.”
“Was he?”
Arthur’s voice cracked.
“Was he wrong when he said the money was not the worst part?”
Evelyn said nothing.
Arthur turned to the hotel physician.
“Can you test the dessert?”
“Not conclusively here.”
“Can you tell whether it contains something obviously foreign?”
“Possibly.”
The doctor carefully sampled a tiny amount using a testing strip from his emergency bag, then sealed everything again.
After several minutes he frowned.
“This is not normal food chemistry.”
Evelyn laughed nervously.
“That means nothing.”
“No,” the doctor agreed. “It doesn’t prove what substance is present. But I would strongly advise nobody consume it.”
Arthur looked at the fork he had nearly placed in his mouth.
Then at Nia.
A seven-year-old girl had arrived dirty, hungry, and hunted through the bowels of his own hotel.
She had done what an entire executive staff had failed to do.
She had warned him.
Arthur crouched so he was level with her.
“Where is your mother?”
Nia’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to find her.”
“Promise?”
Arthur had made promises worth billions.
None had felt heavier.
“I promise.”
A security guard entered the ballroom.
“Mr. Whitmore.”
Arthur turned.
“We found blood in the west service corridor.”
Nia stopped breathing.
Arthur’s face hardened.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know.”
The guard hesitated.
“But we found this beside it.”
He held up a torn piece of gray fabric.
May you like
Nia recognized it immediately.
Her mother’s jacket.
