Chapter 4 - Christmas in the Basement
David cleared everyone except police and Maya from the immediate area.
Celeste objected.
“You cannot interrogate a child.”
“I’m his father.”
“And you’re emotional.”
The irony almost made him laugh.
Officer Walsh arranged for a child-interview specialist, but Noah would not leave David’s side.
He told the story slowly.
Last Christmas Eve, while David hosted a corporate dinner upstairs, Celeste had taken Noah downstairs.
“She said she had a surprise.”
“What surprise?” David asked.
“Mom.”
David’s throat tightened.
Noah said Celeste brought him to B-17.
Elena had been inside.
“She looked different.”
“How?”
“Her hair was shorter. She was skinny.”
“Did she seem hurt?”
Noah thought.
“She was scared.”
David looked at Celeste.
“You brought my son to my missing wife?”
Celeste shook her head violently.
“He dreamed it.”
Noah stood.
“I didn’t!”
Maya put a hand near his shoulder without touching him.
David forced himself to stay calm.
“What did Mom say?”
“She hugged me. She cried. She gave me the key again.”
“Again?”
“She said Aunt Celeste took the first one.”
Celeste’s face betrayed her.
David saw it.
Noah continued.
“Mom told me, ‘Keep this where nobody looks.’”
“Where did you keep it?”
“In my stuffed dinosaur.”
David remembered Noah cutting open the stitching months earlier.
He had assumed it was childish damage.
“What else did she say?”
Noah’s voice dropped.
“She said she was sorry she couldn’t come upstairs.”
“Why couldn’t she?”
“Aunt Celeste said people would get hurt.”
David’s rage became almost physical.
“You threatened her?”
Celeste stepped toward him.
“You have no idea what Elena did.”
“Then tell me.”
“She was destroying everything.”
“What does that mean?”
Celeste said nothing.
The child specialist arrived and took Noah to a quieter office with David nearby.
Maya remained in the corridor.
When David returned thirty minutes later, she was studying a Northstar invoice through its evidence sleeve.
“My brother found this.”
“You recognize it?”
“The signature.”
She pointed.
A procurement approval bore the name Gabriel Torres.
“That isn’t his signature.”
David looked closely.
“How can you know?”
“Because Gabriel had a tremor in his right hand after a motorcycle accident. His G always broke in the middle.”
The signature was smooth.
Someone had forged it.
David closed his eyes.
Northstar’s invoices had been routed through employees who could later be blamed.
Gabriel disappeared after discovering it.
Elena disappeared after investigating Gabriel.
And David had signed the board-level authorizations that made the money available.
Someone had used his authority as cover.
His phone rang.
Richard.
David answered on speaker.
“Where are you?”
Richard’s voice was calm.
“I’m told you’re having a crisis at the Halcyon.”
“Come downstairs.”
“I’m not at the hotel.”
“Where are you?”
“With a client.”
“Your ring is on security footage outside B-17 with Elena.”
Silence.
Then Richard sighed.
“David, there are things Elena asked me to keep confidential.”
“My wife has been missing twenty-two months.”
“She was my client too.”
“Not after she disappeared.”
“You’re wrong.”
David felt cold.
“What?”
“She contacted me after she left.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Maya watched her.
David said, “So you knew she was alive.”
“I knew she was alive for a period.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“She instructed me not to.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid of you.”
David stopped.
Richard continued.
“She believed you had authorized fraudulent transfers. She believed you would retaliate if she exposed them.”
David looked at the forged invoices.
“That’s what you told her.”
“No. That’s what the documents showed.”
“Come to the hotel.”
“I advise you not to open or distribute anything in B-17. Those materials may include privileged legal documents.”
Maya laughed bitterly.
“Now he cares about procedure.”
Richard heard her.
“Is Maya Torres there?”
The use of her full name changed the room.
Maya stepped toward the phone.
“You remember me.”
“I represented Bennett Hospitality when your brother was terminated.”
“My brother wasn’t terminated.”
“Maya—”
“You helped erase him.”
Richard’s tone sharpened.
“David, remove her from the room.”
“No.”
“You’re allowing a disgruntled employee access to confidential corporate records.”
David stared at Celeste.
“My sister assaulted my son. Your ring is on footage with my missing wife. Your name appears in documents tied to a shell company. And you’re worried about Maya?”
Richard paused.
Then said quietly, “Ask your wife who founded Northstar.”
David’s heart lurched.
“You said you don’t know where she is.”
“I said she contacted me.”
“When?”
Another pause.
“Three weeks ago.”
David gripped the phone.
“Where is Elena?”
Richard disconnected.
David immediately called back.
The number had been switched off.
Police began obtaining emergency preservation requests for Richard’s phone and digital accounts.
Meanwhile the forensic technician successfully powered Elena’s old recorder.
There were eleven files.
The last recording began with Elena’s voice.
“If David ever hears this, it means I failed.”
David sat down.
Noah was upstairs with the child specialist.
Maya stood opposite him.
The recording continued.
“Northstar was not created to steal from the company. It was created to hide something worse.”
Paper rustled.
Then Elena said a name.
“Celeste.”
David looked up.
His sister stopped breathing.
Elena’s voice continued.
“I know what happened the night Gabriel Torres disappeared.”
Maya grabbed the edge of the desk.
Then a man spoke in the recording.
Not Richard.
Not Cole.
David recognized the voice immediately.
His father.
Charles Bennett.
May you like
A man who had been dead for fourteen months.
“Turn that recorder off, Elena.”
