Chapter 3 - The West Service Elevator
Roman turned toward the sound.
One clear metallic chime.
The service elevator.
Cross drew his weapon.
Roman immediately shook his head.
“No shooting unless you see a weapon.”
Cross nodded.
Emily noticed Roman glance at her.
He was thinking about the fact that she was standing in a dark unfinished floor inside a building where someone had just threatened his life.
She thought about it too.
It still seemed better than facing Vanessa alone downstairs.
Another elevator chime sounded.
Closer.
Cross motioned for one guard to stay near Emily.
Roman moved toward the corridor.
Emily followed.
The guard tried to stop her.
“Ma’am—”
“If you leave me alone in that room with a ringing phone, I will scream loud enough to ruin the engagement party.”
Roman looked back.
“Let her come.”
They reached the west service elevator.
Its stainless steel doors were closed.
Above them, the floor indicator was blank.
Roman checked his watch.
11:34.
Six minutes.
Cross pressed the call button.
Nothing.
Roman examined the wall.
“There’s a maintenance panel.”
Cross opened it.
Inside, every breaker appeared normal except one.
A handwritten label had been taped beside it.
11:40.
Emily stared.
“You have got to be kidding.”
Cross inspected it.
“Timer relay.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Connected to what?”
“I can’t tell without tracing it.”
“Do it.”
Cross crouched.
Emily moved back.
Roman stood beside her.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Roman said, “You should never have been dragged into this.”
Emily glanced at him.
“I volunteered.”
“You didn’t know what it was.”
“Neither did you.”
That was true.
Roman studied the dark corridor.
“My brother hated elevators.”
Emily blinked.
“That seems like strange timing for a family story.”
“He got trapped in one when he was eleven.”
“Did you?”
“No. I was outside.”
“What did you do?”
“Pried the doors apart with a crowbar.”
She looked at him.
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Emily shook her head.
“That explains a lot.”
Roman almost asked what that meant.
Cross interrupted.
“This relay doesn’t control the elevator.”
“What does it control?”
“The building fire system.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“At eleven-forty, it triggers an evacuation.”
Emily understood first.
“All the guests upstairs come down.”
Cross nodded.
“Elevators lock out. Stairwells open. Hundreds of people start moving.”
Roman looked toward the stairwell.
“A crowd.”
“Cover.”
“For someone leaving.”
Or entering.
Cross followed the wiring.
“It also unlocks loading access for emergency crews.”
Roman looked at the clock.
11:36.
Four minutes.
“Disable it.”
“I can.”
“Do it.”
Cross reached toward the relay.
Emily saw something.
“Wait.”
Everyone froze again.
She moved closer.
A second wire.
Thin.
Red.
Running behind the panel and into the wall.
Cross followed it.
His face darkened.
“Secondary trigger.”
“For what?” Roman asked.
Cross opened an adjacent access plate.
Inside sat a small communication device.
Not an explosive.
A transmitter.
“It sends a signal somewhere else if the relay is interrupted.”
Roman exhaled.
“So if we disable the evacuation…”
“Someone knows.”
Emily stared.
“Then don’t disable it.”
Cross looked at her.
“That releases the building.”
“Which is what they expect.”
Roman understood.
“You want them to think the plan worked.”
Emily nodded.
“You said whoever is doing this is inside.”
“Maybe.”
“So let them move.”
Roman looked at Cross.
“Can we trigger the fire alarm without opening exterior doors?”
Cross thought.
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
“And loading access?”
“Keep it locked.”
Cross began rerouting the relay.
Roman turned to Emily.
“Remind me what your job was before…”
He stopped.
“Before I became homeless?”
“Yes.”
“Payroll and compliance.”
“That explains how you think?”
“No. My mother explained how I think.”
Roman looked at her.
“She used to say people lie with words, but plans lie with structure.”
“What does that mean?”
“If something doesn’t fit, don’t argue with it. Find out what it was built to hide.”
Roman considered that.
Then alarms exploded through the building.
Emily jumped.
Red emergency lights flashed.
A recorded voice announced:
“Attention. Please proceed to the nearest emergency stairwell.”
Cross stood.
“We’re live.”
Roman checked the time.
11:40.
Above them, hundreds of guests began moving.
Doors opened.
Footsteps filled stairwells.
The west service elevator suddenly activated.
Its floor indicator illuminated.
B2.
Basement.
Then B1.
1.
2.
Rising.
Cross raised his weapon.
Roman stepped forward.
Emily watched the numbers climb.
18.
19.
20.
21.
The elevator stopped at 45.
The doors opened.
Empty.
Nobody inside.
Only a single wooden crate.
Roman stared.
Cross inspected the cabin.
“No movement.”
Emily looked at the crate.
A white card rested on top.
Roman stepped inside.
“Careful,” Emily said.
“I know.”
Cross inspected the crate first.
“No wires.”
Roman lifted the card.
His name.
Again.
He opened the crate.
Inside was a suit jacket carefully folded.
Dark navy.
Roman touched it.
His face changed.
Emily knew without asking.
“Luca’s?”
Roman nodded.
“He wore this the night he died.”
Cross stared.
“How?”
Roman pulled the jacket from the crate.
There was a tear along one sleeve.
A dry cleaner label inside.
Roman checked the pockets.
Empty.
Then Emily noticed the lining.
“Wait.”
A section near the inner seam looked thicker.
Roman turned it.
Emily ran her fingers along the fabric.
Something rectangular was sewn inside.
Cross produced a small knife.
Roman cut the stitches.
A memory card fell into his palm.
Nobody spoke.
Roman held it beneath the emergency light.
MicroSD.
Luca had hidden something.
Three years ago.
Cross looked toward the elevator.
“This is what eleven-forty was about.”
Roman shook his head.
“No.”
Emily looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because whoever wanted me to get this could have mailed it.”
Cross understood.
“The alarm was meant to create movement.”
Roman nodded.
“For someone else.”
A radio crackled.
One of Cross’s men.
“Director, we have a problem downstairs.”
“What?”
“The lobby is chaos. Guests coming down. We’re containing them.”
“And Vanessa?”
Silence.
Cross repeated.
“Where is Vanessa Sinclair?”
The guard answered.
“She’s gone.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“How?”
“She entered the women’s restroom just before the alarm. When we checked, the window to the service corridor was open.”
Roman looked at Emily.
The warning.
DO NOT LET THE WOMAN BESIDE YOU SEE THIS.
Cross spoke into the radio.
“Seal every exit.”
“They already are.”
“Find her.”
Roman stepped out of the elevator.
Then Emily noticed something beneath the crate.
A folded photograph.
She picked it up.
“Roman.”
He turned.
Emily handed it to him.
The image was old.
Luca stood beside another man.
The man was younger than the injured stranger Emily had met, but unmistakably Thomas Vale.
Between them stood a third person.
Vanessa Sinclair.
The date printed in the corner was four years earlier.
Roman stared.
Vanessa had told him she barely knew Thomas.
The photograph proved otherwise.
But Emily was looking at something else.
Behind the three of them, reflected in a car window, stood a fourth person.
A man wearing a suit.
His face partially obscured.
Roman lifted the photo closer.
Cross leaned in.
Emily said, “Do you know him?”
Roman’s expression went cold.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My father’s oldest friend.”
Cross whispered the name.
“Victor Sarto.”
Roman said nothing.
Victor Sarto had been Moretti family counsel for twenty-seven years.
He had handled Luca’s estate.
He had arranged the funeral.
He had stood beside Roman at the grave.
And he was currently upstairs among the engagement guests.
Cross radioed the lobby.
“Locate Victor Sarto.”
A response came immediately.
“He left the ballroom during the alarm.”
Roman looked at the clock.
11:43.
The trap had not been designed to kill him.
It had been designed to make two people run.
Vanessa Sinclair.
And Victor Sarto.
Roman closed his hand around Luca’s memory card.
“Find them.”
Emily looked at the photograph again.
Then she noticed something written on the back.
Three words.
She turned it toward Roman.
TRUST THE GIRL.
Roman stared at the message.
Then at Emily.
Neither understood why a photograph hidden three years ago contained words that seemed to point toward a woman Luca could not possibly have known would appear tonight.
Until Emily looked closer.
“That isn’t what it says.”
Roman frowned.
Emily wiped dirt from the faded ink.
The final word became clearer.
Not GIRL.
A name.
TRUST E. CARTER.
Emily stopped breathing.
Roman looked at her.
“Carter?”
She stepped backward.
“No.”
“What?”
“My father’s name was Edward Carter.”
Roman’s expression changed.
Emily stared at the photograph.
Her father had died twelve years earlier.
At least that was what she had been told.
May you like
And suddenly the warning she thought she had delivered for a stranger no longer looked random at all.
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