Chapter 5 - The Second Entry
Officer Ruiz arrived within fifteen minutes.
Rachel gave her the phone.
The threat had come through a masked internet number.
Not impossible to trace.
Not easy either.
“Do you have somewhere else to stay?” Ruiz asked.
“My house.”
“Does your husband have access?”
Rachel almost laughed.
“He lives there.”
Naomi answered for her.
“She’ll stay somewhere he does not control.”
Daniel texted three times while Ruiz was there.
Where are you taking Ethan?
We need to discuss this as parents.
Do not weaponize our son.
Rachel showed the messages to Naomi.
“Don’t respond,” Naomi said.
“I have to communicate about Ethan.”
“You do. But carefully.”
Rachel typed:
Ethan is safe. Police are investigating a threat. Future communication about his location will go through counsel if necessary.
Daniel replied almost immediately.
What threat?
Rachel stared.
Naomi noticed.
“He shouldn’t know about it yet.”
“Unless someone told him.”
“Or unless he sent it.”
They left the Ward Grand through a service exit to avoid reporters.
Someone had already leaked the laundry-cart confrontation.
By three o’clock, a Chicago business blog published:
WARD MERIDIAN FAMILY DRAMA: CHAIRWOMAN ACCUSED OF SHOVING HOTEL EMPLOYEE.
No mention of Ethan.
No mention of the cart.
Rachel sat in the back of Naomi’s SUV reading it while rage built behind her ribs.
“Daniel’s getting ahead of the story.”
Naomi kept her eyes on the road.
“Yes.”
“He’s making me look violent.”
“Yes.”
“And unstable.”
“Yes.”
Rachel put down the phone.
“You could sound slightly more outraged.”
“I am paid to be useful.”
Rachel almost smiled.
Naomi drove them to a furnished Gold Coast apartment owned by her law firm for clients requiring privacy.
Maya Torres was waiting outside.
Rachel stared.
“What are you doing here?”
Maya looked nervous.
“Ms. Brooks called me.”
Naomi unlocked the apartment.
“I wanted to speak to her somewhere hotel management could not interrupt.”
Inside, Ethan went to the bedroom with a sandwich and a tablet.
Maya remained standing.
“You can sit,” Rachel said.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re shaking.”
Maya sat.
Naomi turned on a recorder after obtaining consent.
“Tell us what you saw today.”
Maya repeated the basement incident carefully.
Then Naomi asked, “Have you seen Clara do anything unusual before?”
Maya looked toward Rachel.
“Yes.”
Rachel waited.
“About six weeks ago, I was working the eleven-to-seven shift. Clara came into laundry around two in the morning.”
“That’s unusual?”
“She supervises housekeeping. She can be anywhere.”
“But?”
“She had two black garment bags.”
“What was inside?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
Maya nodded.
“She told me they were guest clothing going to specialty cleaning.”
“Were they tagged?”
“No.”
Hotel laundry was obsessive about tracking.
Rachel knew that.
“What happened?”
“She asked me to load them into the vendor pickup cage without logging them.”
Rachel frowned.
“Why?”
“She said executive instruction.”
“Whose?”
“She didn’t say.”
Maya rubbed her palms together.
“The next week it happened again. Different bags.”
Naomi asked, “Did you ever see what was inside?”
“Once.”
Maya’s voice dropped.
“One bag tore.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“There were papers.”
“What kind?”
“Boxes of them. Folders. Binders.”
“Guest documents?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“One binder said Chicago Renovation — Phase Three.”
Rachel and Naomi exchanged a look.
Maya continued.
“And there was a metal cash box.”
Rachel’s pulse jumped.
“Cash?”
“I never saw inside.”
“Where did the bags go?”
“A white delivery van picked them up from the loading dock.”
“Company?”
“No logo.”
“License plate?”
Maya reached into her bag.
“I wrote it down.”
She handed Naomi a folded piece of receipt paper.
Naomi looked at it.
“Why?”
Maya’s expression became hard.
“Because Clara blamed my cousin for missing minibar money last year. He got fired. Later we found out the guest had been charged twice and the cash wasn’t missing at all.”
Rachel frowned.
“You thought Clara was stealing.”
“I thought Clara was the kind of person who made sure someone else got blamed.”
That sentence stayed in the room.
Naomi photographed the plate information.
“Did Clara know you wrote this down?”
“No.”
“Anyone else?”
Maya hesitated.
“Grant.”
“Security director Grant Bell?”
“I told him after the second pickup.”
“What did he say?”
“That he’d look into it.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel thought of Grant’s administrator credentials being used to delete the basement footage.
“Anything else?”
Maya nodded.
“Clara came to me ten minutes after Mrs. Mercer left the basement.”
Rachel stared.
“She was released?”
“This was before police took her downstairs for the interview.”
“What did she say?”
Maya’s eyes flickered.
“She said I had misunderstood what happened. She offered me five thousand dollars.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened.
“To lie?”
“She said to ‘avoid unnecessary confusion.’”
“Did you take it?”
“No.”
Maya looked offended.
“Then she said people who make trouble in luxury hotels stop working in luxury hotels.”
Naomi leaned back.
“Do you still have your employee phone?”
“Yes.”
“Any messages?”
Maya unlocked it.
One text from Clara read:
Think carefully before repeating something you didn’t actually see.
Another:
HR already knows about your attendance issues.
Maya’s mouth tightened.
“My mother had surgery in February. I missed two shifts.”
Rachel recognized the tactic.
Create a weakness.
Then weaponize it.
Daniel did that too.
Naomi asked, “May I copy these?”
Maya handed her the phone.
Rachel’s personal phone vibrated.
It was Samir.
He sent only an address.
A coffee shop in Evanston.
And beneath it:
6:30. Come alone if you can.
Naomi read over Rachel’s shoulder.
“You’re not going alone.”
“He specifically said—”
“I don’t care.”
Rachel’s phone vibrated again.
Another message from Samir.
One more thing.
I found the second entry into Daniel’s room.
Rachel typed:
Who?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally:
The hotel system shows it was your credential.
Rachel stared.
Her executive access card.
May you like
The card she had not used in eight months.
The card she kept locked inside her home-office desk.
