Chapter 6 — Smoke Behind the Door
Priya grabbed the blue folder.
Lena took Marisol’s hand.
The door handle was already hot.
“We can’t go through there,” Priya said.
Smoke thickened near the ceiling.
The windows were sealed.
Lena looked toward the bathroom.
“The service access.”
Most guests never knew that several suites in the old hotel had maintenance panels behind the bathroom mirrors.
Richard had shown Lena the original building plans when she was sixteen.
Priya pulled the mirror from its mounts.
Behind it was a narrow service shaft.
Marisol stared into the darkness.
“I can’t go in there.”
“Yes, you can,” Lena said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
The fire alarm began screaming.
Priya entered first.
Marisol followed.
Lena was halfway through when the room door burst open.
A masked figure stepped through the smoke.
He saw the folder in Priya’s hand.
Then he saw Lena.
He reached for her ankle.
Lena kicked backward and crawled into the shaft.
The maintenance panel slammed shut behind her.
They climbed down one level and emerged inside a linen closet.
Hotel staff rushed through the corridors, evacuating guests.
Priya handed the folder to Lena.
“Take this to your father.”
“What about you?”
“I’m finding the man who started that fire.”
“Priya—”
“He knew exactly where we were.”
That meant someone inside hotel security had leaked their location.
Lena reached the lobby, where Richard was directing the evacuation.
When he saw the soot on her face, his composure broke.
“What happened?”
“Someone tried to burn the evidence.”
She handed him the folder.
Richard opened it.
The first page contained a transfer for $4.8 million.
The receiving company was named North Coast Consulting.
Richard knew the name.
His hotel had paid North Coast almost nine million dollars over the last three years for “accessibility consulting.”
He had never met anyone from the company.
He looked at the signature authorizing the payments.
It was his own.
Except Richard had never signed it.
“Someone has been stealing from my hotel too,” he said.
Celeste Caldwell was not merely running a corrupt charity.
May you like
She had planted someone inside the Ashford Hotel.
And that person had access to Richard’s financial authorization.
