Chapter 4 - A Voice in the Walls.
Vanessa lunged toward the nearest speaker as if she could pull Olivia through it.
"Baby, where are you?"
Static answered.
Then a man's distorted voice filled the ballroom.
"Jennifer will take the elevator to the east wing alone."
"She will bring the folder and sign the authorization inside it."
"If anyone follows her, the girl leaves through a different door."
The speakers went silent.
Detective Sloan immediately ordered the hotel locked down.
Jennifer looked at the blank signature page resting beneath the evidence in the tan folder.
It authorized the sale of her voting shares to a private fund for one dollar.
The buyer was hidden behind three shell companies.
The controlling partner was Daniel Mercer.
"I'm going," Jennifer said.
Vanessa grabbed her arm.
"Give them what they want."
"That is what you have done for seven years, Vanessa."
"Where did it get your daughter?"
Vanessa recoiled, then slapped Jennifer across the face.
The room erupted.
Jennifer slowly turned back, a red mark rising across her cheek.
"Do that again, and Olivia will watch both of her parents get arrested tonight."
Vanessa's hand fell.
Daniel moved between them with false urgency.
"We don't have time for this."
"You're right," Jennifer replied.
"So tell your man upstairs to release her."
His pupils widened.
It was barely a reaction, but Sloan saw it.
"Why would she think the kidnapper works for you, Mr. Mercer?"
"Because she thinks everything is about me."
Jennifer opened the folder and removed two nearly identical pens.
One contained ordinary black ink.
The other contained a microtransmitter installed by her investigator.
She slipped the transmitter pen beside the unsigned authorization.
"If the signal moves, follow it."
Sloan nodded once.
The elegant hotel elevator carried Jennifer upward while warm music continued playing below for a party no one remembered enjoying.
On the mirrored wall, she saw the red mark from Vanessa's hand darkening across her cheek.
Daniel had spent years arranging women on opposite sides of his lies, then watching them punish one another for his choices.
Jennifer refused to carry that pattern upstairs.
She opened the folder and wrote one sentence across the blank authorization page.
OLIVIA LEAVES FIRST.
If Daniel forced her hand, the cameras would record the condition he ignored.
She also loosened one heel so she could run if the elevator became a trap.
The woman staring back from the mirror was frightened, but she was no longer confused.
Confusion had always been Daniel's strongest weapon.
At the sealed east wing, the doors opened onto plastic sheeting and construction dust.
Olivia sat in a chair beneath a temporary work light.
Her nanny lay nearby, conscious but bound at the wrists.
A hotel maintenance supervisor named Carl Voss stood behind the child.
Jennifer recognized him as Daniel's former driver.
"Put the folder down."
Jennifer laid it on an unfinished marble counter.
"Let them go first."
"Sign first."
Olivia's eyes shone with tears.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Jennifer."
"You have nothing to be sorry for."
Jennifer picked up the transmitter pen.
Before she touched the paper, Daniel stepped from behind a plastic curtain.
His navy suit was powdered with gray dust.
"You always needed an audience," he said.
"Now you can lose everything in private."
May you like
Jennifer stared past him toward the dark window.
In its reflection, she saw Vanessa enter the corridor carrying the silver cake knife.
