Chapter 3 - The Men Who Came Too Quickly
Roman ordered the elevator stopped at the service level.
Ortega warned him not to trust the electronic controls.
So they did it manually.
Marcus and two engineers isolated the motor while Roman remained with Meera and Evan.
The elevator stopped between floors six and seven.
The knocking continued.
Roman looked toward Ortega.
“How do we get them out?”
“Service access.”
They climbed.
Meera wanted Evan taken somewhere safe.
The problem was simple.
Nobody knew where safe was anymore.
The hotel security system had been compromised.
Trent was missing.
Two unidentified men had entered a restricted level without credentials.
And somebody inside Roman's organization knew his movements.
Roman finally said, “They stay with me.”
Meera laughed bitterly.
“That isn't comforting.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
She studied him.
Then nodded.
At floor seven, Ortega opened the access panel.
Marcus and another guard manually released the elevator door.
Inside sat a terrified hotel technician named Samuel Price.
His wrists had been bound with plastic restraints.
Marcus cut them.
Samuel stumbled out.
“They made me do it.”
“Who?” Roman asked.
“I don't know their names.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“The men downstairs?”
Samuel nodded.
“They told me to disable the monitoring alarms.”
Roman looked toward Marcus.
“When?”
“Tonight. Around two.”
“Why didn't you report it?”
Samuel's eyes filled with shame.
“They had pictures of my daughter leaving school.”
Meera instinctively pulled Evan closer.
Roman's anger changed.
It became colder.
“Did Lawson know?”
Samuel nodded.
“He let them into engineering.”
“Did Marcus?”
Samuel looked confused.
“Marcus?”
“Answer.”
“No.”
Roman watched him carefully.
“You're certain?”
“Yes.”
For the first time since seeing Trent's sign, some tension left Marcus's face.
But Roman wasn't finished.
“Who knew I would use the executive elevator?”
Samuel hesitated.
“They did.”
“How?”
“They said your schedule came from upstairs.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“Which floor?”
Samuel looked at him.
“Forty-three.”
Roman's private floor.
Again.
They returned downstairs.
Security had detained the two strangers.
One carried a temporary access badge registered under a nonexistent contractor.
The other had a hotel master key.
Both refused to speak.
Roman didn't threaten them.
He didn't need to.
Instead, he asked Marcus to call the police.
That surprised Meera.
Roman noticed.
“You expected something else?”
“I don't know what I expected.”
“Good.”
He looked toward Evan.
“Neither do I anymore.”
The boy was drawing.
Meera stared.
“Evan, what are you doing?”
“The sounds.”
He had taken one of his hotel receipts and drawn vertical lines.
Beside them were numbers.
3:12.
3:14.
3:15.
3:17.
Roman crouched beside him.
“What are those?”
“Times.”
“How do you know?”
“The lobby clock.”
Evan pointed toward his marks.
“This was the service elevator.”
Another line.
“This was the big elevator.”
Roman realized “big elevator” meant his.
Then Evan drew a third line.
“What is that?”
“The one behind the wall.”
Ortega looked sharply at him.
“What one?”
“The elevator nobody uses.”
Ortega's expression changed.
“There is an old freight lift.”
Roman looked at him.
“Where does it go?”
“Original building plans show it connecting basement storage to floors thirty-eight through forty-three. It was sealed years ago.”
Evan shook his head.
“It isn't sealed.”
“How do you know?”
“I hear it.”
Ortega stared at him.
“When?”
“Sometimes at night.”
Meera suddenly remembered.
For months, Evan had told her about “the secret elevator.”
She had assumed it was imagination.
He was six.
He drew elevators with crayons.
She had never considered that he was describing something real.
Roman stood.
“Find it.”
They discovered the entrance behind decorative paneling in an unused service hallway.
The old freight elevator had no modern digital controls.
Someone had restored it.
Recently.
Fresh lubricant coated the tracks.
New wiring ran behind an old brass switch.
And beside the elevator sat several black equipment cases.
Marcus opened one.
Inside were maintenance uniforms.
Temporary hotel badges.
Radio equipment.
Building diagrams.
Photographs.
Roman picked up one.
It showed him leaving his penthouse.
Another showed Marcus.
Another showed Trent.
Then Meera.
Her stomach dropped.
The next photograph showed Evan sitting outside the laundry room with his coloring book.
Meera pulled him against her.
“Why do they have pictures of my son?”
Roman's face became unreadable.
Marcus searched deeper.
He found a folder.
Inside were schedules.
Names.
Routes.
And a page labeled:
R.B. — FINAL WINDOW: 03:16
Roman stared at it.
The timing was exact.
The elevator had been prepared.
His departure had been tracked.
The emergency alarm had been disabled.
Everything had been arranged.
Everything except Evan.
A six-year-old boy who happened to hear a sound nobody else noticed.
Meera's voice trembled.
“We're leaving.”
Roman nodded.
“I'll arrange protection.”
“I don't want your protection.”
“You need it.”
“My son became a target because he was in your building.”
“No.”
Roman looked at the photograph of Evan.
“He was photographed before tonight.”
Meera froze.
That meant someone had been watching him already.
“Why?”
Roman didn't know.
Evan quietly picked up one photograph.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“This man.”
He pointed at a blurred figure in the background.
Roman leaned closer.
The photograph had been taken days earlier.
Meera was pushing a housekeeping cart.
Evan sat beside the wall.
In the reflection of a brass elevator door stood a man watching them.
Marcus.
Meera looked up.
Marcus stared at the picture.
“That isn't possible.”
Roman's voice became dangerously quiet.
“Why?”
“I wasn't working that night.”
Roman checked the date.
Marcus was right.
He had been in Atlantic City.
There were dozens of witnesses.
Evan studied the photograph.
Then pointed.
“That's not him.”
Roman looked again.
Same height.
Same haircut.
Same suit.
But Evan pointed toward the man's hand.
“Mr. Marcus wears his watch here.”
He touched his left wrist.
“The picture man wears it there.”
Right wrist.
Roman looked at Marcus.
Marcus slowly lifted his left arm.
A watch rested there.
Someone had been deliberately impersonating Roman's head of security.
Not perfectly.
Just well enough for cameras and tired employees.
Ortega examined the photograph.
Then he whispered:
“I've seen him.”
Roman turned.
“Where?”
“Forty-three.”
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
“Doing what?”
Ortega's face went pale.
“Coming out of your father's old office.”
Roman went completely still.
That office had been locked since his father died.
Nobody entered it.
Nobody.
“Who has the key?”
Marcus asked.
Roman answered without looking away from the photograph.
“One person.”
“Who?”
Roman folded the picture slowly.
“My brother.”
And for the first time that night, even Marcus looked afraid.
Because Roman Black's younger brother had supposedly been living in Europe for nearly two years.
Yet somebody wearing Marcus Hale's face, carrying access from Roman's private floor, had just walked out of a room only Roman's brother could unlock.
Roman looked toward the old freight elevator.
Its indicator suddenly illuminated.
43.
Then 42.
May you like
Someone was coming down.
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