Chapter 13 - Thirty-Seven Missing Reservations
The next forty-eight hours changed the investigation completely.
Rebecca retained an independent forensic accounting firm.
Dana coordinated the preservation of electronic records.
Employment counsel began confidential interviews with former staff members.
The deeper we looked, the clearer the pattern became.
Felix's thirty-seven documented reservations were only part of a much larger discrepancy.
Maria's notebook added seventy-four incidents requiring review.
Additional reports revealed unauthorized adjustments, disputed refunds, duplicate charges, and questionable transfers to affiliated properties.
Not every irregular transaction necessarily represented fraud.
Some could have legitimate explanations.
But collectively, they demanded answers management had failed to provide.
I refused to let the investigation become a spectacle.
The people affected were real.
Their private details mattered.
And I didn't want another grieving mother or exhausted family used as a headline simply because the story was dramatic.
One particular reservation stayed with me.
It belonged to a woman named Eleanor Price.
She was seventy-two and had booked three nights at the Vance Grand for her fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Her husband had died unexpectedly two months before the trip.
Rather than canceling, she decided to travel alone.
The hotel had been where they spent their honeymoon.
When Eleanor arrived, Patrick told her the reservation was invalid.
She was redirected to a roadside property more than twenty minutes away.
Her complaint stated that she sat in the motel parking lot and cried for an hour.
I read that sentence over and over.
Then I asked Rebecca whether we could contact her.
"Through the guest restitution process," she said. "Respectfully and without pressure."
Eleanor agreed to speak with me by telephone.
Her voice was soft and dignified.
"Mrs. Vance, I don't want anyone fired because of me."
"That's not why I'm calling."
"Then why?"
"Because you deserved better."
She was silent.
I continued.
"My husband helped build this hotel. He died five years ago. I know what it means to return to a place filled with memories."
Eleanor took a shaky breath.
"Oh, honey."
Suddenly, two widows who had never met understood each other completely.
We spoke for twenty minutes.
She told me about her husband, Frank.
How he had proposed with a ring hidden inside a box of doughnuts.
How he danced terribly.
How he always packed too many socks.
I told her about Daniel.
How he burned pancakes.
How he cried during children's movies.
How he kissed Lily's forehead every morning, even when she was too young to understand.
By the end of our conversation, we were both crying.
"Mrs. Price," I said, "when you're ready, I'd like to invite you back. As my guest."
"I don't know."
"No pressure. The invitation will remain open."
She thanked me.
Then she said something I would never forget.
"Please make sure the next woman who walks into your hotel alone doesn't feel as lonely as I did."
"I will."
After the call, I sat quietly for several minutes.
Then I summoned the department heads.
Not Adrian.
Not Nathan.
The people who actually operated the hotel.
Henry.
Lupita.
Robert.
Emily.
The engineering supervisor.
The night auditor.
The guest-relations team.
I asked one question.
"What do you need in order to serve our guests properly?"
At first, nobody answered.
Then Henry spoke.
"Honest purchasing records."
Lupita added, "Enough staff to clean rooms safely."
A young night auditor said, "Permission to question billing errors without getting threatened."
Robert raised his hand.
"Time to talk to guests."
Several people laughed.
But I knew he was serious.
The hotel's guest-service model had been replaced with numerical targets so rigid that staff were discouraged from spending extra minutes helping anyone.
I wrote everything down.
By the end of the meeting, we had a list of twenty-three operational issues requiring immediate review.
Then Emily approached.
"Mrs. Vance, I found the original anniversary photographs."
She handed me a drive.
"The edited images came from Mr. Whitmore's communications office."
"Thank you."
"There's something else."
She looked nervous.
"Before the gala, I was asked to prepare a video tribute."
"To Daniel?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
"Mr. Whitmore rejected the first version because it contained too many photographs of you."
I felt a cold sensation spread through my chest.
"Did he explain why?"
Emily nodded.
"He said the new investors needed to associate the hotel's growth with his leadership."
I thanked her.
Then asked her to preserve the original files.
That afternoon, Dana arrived with another discovery.
The black commercial van seen leaving B-17 had been registered to a storage facility contracted through Northbridge Administrative Holdings.
An authorized review of the relevant records identified a second archive location outside Chicago.
And a historical transaction connected to that same holding structure dated back five years.
The year Daniel died.
I opened the file.
The payment description read:
SUCCESSION STRATEGY CONSULTATION — VANCE HOSPITALITY.
The date was three weeks before Daniel's death.
I stared at the screen.
"Rebecca?"
May you like
"Yes?"
"Why was Adrian planning a succession strategy before anyone knew Daniel wasn't coming home?"
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