Chapter 3 - the voice inside the phone
Daniel stopped Lily before she could pick up the phone.
“Don’t touch it.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his travel bag and lifted the device carefully.
The screen was cracked, but it remained powered on. There was no signal indicator, no owner information and no standard password screen.
Only one audio file appeared.
It was labeled MIDNIGHT.
Mara closed the bridal suite door so Claire and the bridesmaids could not hear them. Daniel lowered the volume and pressed play.
At first, the recording contained only the sound of machinery.
Then Adrian spoke.
“The transfer has to happen tonight.”
A woman answered him.
“Claire will sign. Eleanor has prepared her.”
Mara’s stomach tightened at the mention of her mother.
Adrian continued.
“And if Daniel appears?”
“He won’t.”
“You said that before.”
“I handled it.”
There was a pause followed by the sound of a door opening.
Then Adrian said, “The child saw the key.”
The woman’s response came without hesitation.
“Plant the phone on her if she talks.”
Lily gripped Mara’s hand.
Adrian laughed softly in the recording.
“No one will believe an eight-year-old thief.”
The audio ended.
For several seconds, none of them spoke.
Mara’s first instinct was to take Lily and leave the hotel. Her second was to find Claire and stop the ceremony.
Daniel had another idea.
“We take this to Felix Grant,” he said.
Felix had managed hotel security for nearly twenty years. Jonathan had hired him personally, and he was one of the few employees who had remained after Eleanor assumed control.
Mara nodded.
“Copy the recording first.”
Daniel tried connecting the phone to his own device, but the audio file disappeared as soon as he opened the transfer menu.
A countdown appeared.
00:19:59
“What does that mean?” Lily asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
The screen displayed a second message.
RETURN THE KEY OR THE ARCHIVE OPENS.
Mara felt the hallway grow colder.
“What archive?”
Daniel looked toward the floor beneath them.
“The one under the ballroom.”
Before Jonathan’s death, he had kept original trust documents, private contracts and sensitive hotel records in a secured underground room. After the accident, Eleanor claimed the archive had flooded and been permanently sealed.
Daniel had never believed her.
The countdown continued.
00:19:41
Footsteps approached.
Mara opened the bridal suite door and saw Adrian walking toward them in his tuxedo. His expression was relaxed, but his eyes immediately moved to the phone in Daniel’s covered hand.
“Daniel,” Adrian said. “I thought you understood that you weren’t invited.”
“I don’t need an invitation to enter my family’s hotel.”
“According to the current ownership structure, this is Eleanor’s hotel.”
“Until midnight?”
Adrian’s smile barely changed.
Claire appeared behind him.
She wore her wedding gown and veil, and the sight of her stopped Mara from confronting him directly.
“What’s happening?” Claire asked.
“Nothing,” Adrian said. “Daniel came to cause another scene.”
Daniel looked at his youngest sister.
“Don’t sign the continuity agreement.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“You promised you wouldn’t do this today.”
“I promised I wouldn’t interfere unless I found evidence.”
Adrian extended his hand.
“What evidence?”
Daniel did not give him the phone.
The countdown reached eighteen minutes.
Eleanor entered the corridor wearing a silver-gray gown and the bracelet inherited from her mother.
Her gaze passed over the phone for only a fraction of a second.
Then she smiled at Lily.
“Sweetheart, the photographer needs you downstairs.”
Lily stepped behind Mara.
Eleanor’s smile faded.
At that moment, every phone in the bridal suite received the same notification.
ADRIAN PRESTON’S PRIVATE PHONE HAS BEEN STOLEN.
SECURITY WILL SEARCH ALL PERSONAL BELONGINGS BEFORE THE CEREMONY.
Daniel looked at the device in his hand.
The screen had changed.
The recording was gone.
May you like
Across the black display appeared a final sentence.
IT IS ALREADY IN THE CHILD’S JACKET.
