Chapter 3 - THE EMPLOYEES WHO DISAPPEARED
Marcus left the townhouse without answering.
Within twenty minutes, someone attempted to access Evelyn’s email account.
Within an hour, a black sedan parked across the street.
Naomi returned through the garden entrance and checked the vehicle’s registration. The plates belonged to a company called Arden Strategic Holdings.
Celeste’s company.
“We need information from inside the hotel,” Naomi said.
“Owen is being watched.”
“Then we find someone Marcus stopped watching.”
Evelyn thought of Arthur Bell.
Arthur had worked at the Aurelia Grand for forty-one years. He began as a luggage porter, became a concierge, and eventually knew more about the hotel than any executive.
Marcus had forced him into retirement six months earlier.
The official reason was modernization.
The real reason, Evelyn now suspected, was memory.
Arthur lived above a narrow bookshop two blocks from the river. When Evelyn arrived, he opened the door before she knocked.
“I wondered how long it would take you,” he said.
“You knew I was coming?”
“I knew you would either come here or lose the hotel.”
Arthur led her into a sitting room crowded with photographs from the Aurelia Grand.
In one, Evelyn’s mother stood beside a group of employees at Christmas. In another, Lillian held a young Evelyn in the lobby beneath the same chandelier that still hung there.
Arthur poured tea.
“Marcus believed firing me would erase what I knew.”
“What did you know?”
“That your husband has been preparing to sell the hotel.”
Evelyn lowered her cup.
“He cannot sell it.”
“He can if the board believes the Vale family no longer controls the trust.”
“My father holds the controlling share.”
Arthur gave her a sad look.
“When was the last time you spoke to Victor?”
“Three months ago.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Almost six months.”
“And every update came through Marcus?”
Evelyn did not answer.
Arthur opened a wooden box and removed a stack of copied schedules.
“After Marcus fired me, three other senior employees disappeared. Not resigned. Not retired. Disappeared.”
“Who?”
“The trust administrator, the records director, and your father’s private physician.”
Evelyn’s pulse quickened.
“Where are they?”
“I found the administrator in a care facility under another name. She was frightened and refused to speak. The records director left the country. The physician was killed in a car accident.”
Evelyn looked at him sharply.
“You think Marcus was involved?”
“I think every person who could challenge his documents was removed before the centennial.”
Arthur unfolded a floor plan of the hotel.
Beneath Suite 1901 was the private vault.
Behind it was another room Evelyn had never seen.
“What is that?”
“Your mother called it the Founder’s Archive.”
“I thought the vault was the archive.”
“No. The vault holds valuables. The Founder’s Archive holds the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Original contracts. Private trust instructions. Records concerning the hotel’s construction and the identities of its first investors.”
“Why was I never told?”
“Your mother planned to tell you on your twenty-fifth birthday.”
Evelyn had been twenty-four when Lillian died.
Arthur pointed to the hidden room.
“It can only be opened with two objects. The sapphire key and the founder’s seal.”
“Where is the seal?”
“You have it.”
“I don’t.”
Arthur looked at the ring on Evelyn’s right hand.
It was a plain silver ring that had belonged to her mother.
Evelyn removed it.
On the inner surface was a symbol shaped like a crown divided by a vertical line.
“The brooch opens the first mechanism,” Arthur explained. “The ring opens the second.”
“So Marcus has only half of what he needs.”
“Unless he can force you to surrender the ring.”
Evelyn remembered the way Marcus had stared at her hands when he entered the study.
She put the ring back on.
“What is inside the archive that could give him ownership?”
Arthur’s voice dropped.
“Not ownership. Something that could destroy the Vale family’s claim entirely.”
A noise came from the staircase outside the apartment.
Arthur switched off the lamp.
Evelyn heard footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Naomi moved toward the window, but a second figure appeared in the alley below.
They were surrounded.
Arthur opened a hidden panel behind a bookshelf.
“Your mother had enemies long before Marcus arrived,” he whispered. “Go.”
“What about you?”
“I am an old man with nothing they want.”
“They may believe you told me everything.”
Arthur smiled sadly.
“I haven’t.”
The apartment door shook under a heavy impact.
Evelyn stepped into the concealed passage.
Before Arthur closed the panel, he pressed a brass key into her hand.
“Locker 317 at Central Station.”
“What’s inside?”
“The list of everyone Marcus paid to help him.”
The apartment door splintered.
Arthur pushed the panel closed.
Evelyn stood in darkness as unfamiliar voices entered the room.
May you like
Then she heard Marcus speak.
“Where is my wife?”
