Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN’s VOICE
Victor’s hand trembled as he held the phone to his ear. The massive crystal chandelier above the ballroom seemed to dim, the frantic whispers of the wealthy guests fading into a dull roar.
“Marcus?” Victor breathed, his voice barely holding together. “Marcus Carter?”
“Victor…” The voice on the other end was a wet, ragged wheeze. “They… they didn’t want the girl. They only wanted me. I sent her… to find you.”
Victor looked down at Emma. The eleven-year-old girl stood shivering in her soaked yellow raincoat, tears mixing with the rainwater on her pale cheeks. Her small, calloused hands were clenched into fists at her sides.
“Where are you?” Victor demanded, his military training violently overriding his shock. He locked eyes with his security chief, Daniel, who was currently staring at the phone as if it were a venomous snake.
“The… the cold room,” Marcus gasped. “Victor, the ledger… Ethan left it. They know I found it.”
The line went dead.
Victor lowered the phone. The silence in the immediate circle around the head table was suffocating. He turned his gaze to Daniel Cross. The man who had guarded his life for a decade. The man who had stood beside his brother’s wrecked car seven years ago.
“Explain,” Victor said. The word dropped like an anvil.
Daniel raised both hands, his palms open, his face completely drained of blood. “Boss, listen to me. I swear on my life, I didn’t know Marcus was alive until yesterday. I found him in the South Side, hiding. I took his phone to trace the calls. I was trying to figure out who he was running from.”
“You were at my brother’s crash site,” Victor said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “This girl says she saw you.”
“I was there!” Daniel blurted out. “But I didn’t kill him, Victor! I was the one who pulled him out of the wreck! I was trying to save him!”
Emma tugged hard on Victor’s sleeve. He looked down.
Her hands flew. Fast. Angry.
HE IS LYING.
Victor didn't break eye contact with Daniel. “She says you’re lying.”
“I’m not,” Daniel pleaded, taking a step backward. “Victor, think about it. If I wanted you dead, why would I do it in a room with five hundred witnesses? The poison in that ice bucket…” Daniel’s eyes darted toward the bar. His breath hitched. “It wasn’t just for your glass. I drink scotch on the rocks. Every night at 9:00 PM. It was meant for both of us.”
Victor’s mind raced. He looked at the bar. The bartender who had been reaching for the ice was gone.
“Secure the perimeter!” Victor barked to his remaining loyal guards. “Find the bartender!”
But Emma was already shaking her head. She pointed toward the kitchen doors. Then she pointed at Daniel, and made a cutting motion across her own throat.
HE IS NOT THE BOSS, she signed. HE IS THE DOG.
Before Victor could translate, a scream echoed from the kitchen corridor. Richard Cole, the assistant manager, stumbled backward through the swinging doors, his face pale with horror.
Victor pushed past the guards, his hand instinctively dropping to the concealed holster at his waist. He kicked the kitchen door open.
The bartender was on the floor. Dead. A single, silenced gunshot to the chest.
But it was what the dead man was holding that made Victor’s blood run cold. Clutched in the bartender’s rigid fingers was a heavy, silver pocket watch. It was dented on one side, the glass cracked in a familiar spiderweb pattern.
Victor had given that exact watch to his brother, Ethan, the day he graduated college.
And tucked beneath the watch was a fresh, crisp hotel keycard.
May you like
Room 402.
A room that, according to the hotel’s official blueprints, did not exist.
