Chapter 4 - THE SERVICE CORRIDOR
The courier’s words hung in the fractured silence of the penthouse like a physical blow.
Federal Agent Vance slowly lowered his hands from where Dante had pinned him against the mahogany bookcase. A triumphant, dangerous grin broke across Vance’s face, though he kept his eyes on Dante, waiting for the crack in the facade.
“Well, look at that,” Vance murmured, adjusting his lapel. “It appears someone from your own staff decided to help themselves to our confidential federal records while you were busy playing interrogator. Arrest her.”
Two federal agents immediately turned away from the glass table and took two heavy strides toward me.
My breath caught in my throat. My feet felt glued to the floorboards. I was just Nora Hayes, twenty-six years old, holding ticket number forty-seven with rent nine days late and my mother’s hospital bills stacking up on the kitchen counter. I didn't know what Locker 88-B was. I didn't know what ledger the courier was talking about.
Before the agents could grab my arms, Dante moved.
He didn’t shout. He didn’t draw a weapon. He simply stepped between me and the two federal officers, his broad shoulders blocking their path with immovable authority.
“Nobody is touching her,” Dante said.
Vance stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. “Dante, she’s a suspect in a federal security breach. She was standing right beside the table when the key was found, and according to the dispatch log, someone matching her description cleaned out that locker five minutes before my team arrived.”
“Then you have security footage?” Dante asked, his voice chillingly calm.
“The Grand Central platform cameras captured a woman in a black uniform coat walking out with a silver aluminum case,” Vance said smoothly. “The math is pretty simple, Russo. Your temporary coat-check girl is working for someone else. Or she’s working for you.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to tell them I hadn’t left my post by the elevator all night except to hang coats, but my voice died in my throat.
Then Marco stepped out from the shadows near the terrace doors.
“That’s impossible, Agent Vance,” Marco said, holding up a small tablet computer. “The service elevator log records every employee swipe-card movement in this building. Nora Hayes has not left the service corridor level since six o’clock this evening. She didn’t go to Grand Central Terminal. She couldn’t have.”
Vance frowned. “Cameras don’t lie, Marco. The woman on that platform was wearing a standard-issue staffing agency uniform.”
“Then check the agency database,” Dante commanded, looking down at me. “Nora, take off your jacket.”
I hesitated for a second, then slid my black service jacket off my shoulders, revealing the plain white blouse underneath.
Across the back of my uniform jacket, pinned securely through the wool, was an embroidered name tag: N. HAYES — TEMPSOURCE INC.
Vance’s expression tightened. Because on the tablet Marco was holding up for everyone in the room to see, a frozen still frame from the Grand Central platform camera showed a woman in an identical black uniform walking toward the subway stairs—except the name tag on her jacket didn’t read N. Hayes.
It read S. Miller.
Samantha Miller. The other coat-check attendant assigned to the penthouse tonight, who had mysteriously disappeared to the ladies' room forty-five minutes ago and never came back.
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Sofia, still standing frozen near the glass table, went completely gray.
“She didn't steal the ledger,” I whispered, finding my voice at last. “Samantha didn't work for the agency. She was watching us the whole time.”
