Chapter 3 - The Price of a Signature.
Jennifer reached the side room before anyone could stop her.
The nanny's purse lay on the carpet beside an overturned chair.
Olivia's pink headband rested near a service door leading into the hotel corridors.
Vanessa screamed her daughter's name.
Daniel caught her by the shoulders.
"Calm down before you make this worse."
Vanessa shoved him away.
"You said no one would touch her."
The words changed the room.
Detective Sloan moved closer.
"Who did he say would not touch your daughter?"
Vanessa's anger collapsed behind fear.
"I didn't mean anything."
Jennifer picked up the headband and found a smear of gray powder along its plastic teeth.
Renovation dust covered the sealed east wing of the hotel, two floors above the ballroom.
She had approved the construction schedule herself.
"She's still inside the building."
Daniel blocked the service door.
"Let security handle it."
"Move."
"Jennifer, you are the subject of a criminal investigation."
"And you are standing between a mother and her missing child."
Robert joined them, his jaw rigid.
"Daniel, step aside."
For the first time that evening, Daniel obeyed.
Sloan ordered one officer upstairs and sent another to secure the loading dock.
Jennifer returned to the glass table long enough to retrieve the tan folder.
She found the laboratory report, the pharmacy records, and the payment ledger exactly where she had left them.
One page was missing.
It was the page containing a copy of Daniel's private contract with Blue Finch.
That contract promised him controlling shares in Hale Holdings if Jennifer were declared legally incompetent.
Only four people had known it existed.
Jennifer, her attorney, the investigator who obtained it, and Daniel.
The investigator had warned her that whoever controlled Blue Finch would try to erase the paper trail before midnight.
He had also warned her not to trust anyone who arrived at the party already knowing where she kept the folder.
Jennifer remembered Daniel touching the glass table before she entered the ballroom.
At the time, it had looked like nervous impatience.
Now it looked like a signal.
The note had been correct.
He knew where the originals were because he had hired someone to follow her investigator.
Ellen approached, pearls trembling against her throat.
"What aren't you telling us?"
Jennifer met her mother's frightened eyes.
"Daniel filed an emergency competency petition this morning."
Robert went still.
"If a judge grants it, he becomes temporary controller of your marital assets."
"Including my voting shares."
Daniel appeared in the doorway behind them.
"I filed it because you need help."
"You filed it because the board votes tomorrow."
Guests began raising phones, recording every word.
Daniel's polished mask finally cracked.
"Those shares should never have belonged to you."
Robert stepped forward, but Jennifer lifted one hand.
She wanted Daniel talking.
"Tell them why."
"Because I built that company while you posed for photographs and spent your father's money."
"You became chief financial officer because I recommended you."
"I became chief financial officer because your father needed someone competent."
Robert's face changed at the word needed.
Jennifer noticed.
So did Daniel.
"Ask him," Daniel said softly.
"Ask your father who authorized the first Blue Finch transfer."
Jennifer turned toward Robert.
He did not deny it.
Above them, the chandelier lights blinked once.
May you like
Then Olivia's voice came through the ballroom speakers.
"Mommy, he says Aunt Jennifer has to sign, or I can't go home."
