Chapter 6 - The Locked Door.
Room 814 was registered to a charity donor from Boston who had canceled three days earlier.
The room should have been empty.
Security rode the elevator first.
Claire was told to remain downstairs.
She lasted less than thirty seconds before following Adrian into the next elevator.
"You are terrible at taking instructions," he said.
"I work in hospitality. We survive by ignoring impossible instructions."
Despite everything, Adrian gave a short laugh.
Then the elevator doors opened.
The eighth-floor corridor was silent.
Room 814 stood at the far end.
Reed was already there with two officers.
The electronic lock showed three failed entries and one successful entry at 7:36 p.m.
The successful credential belonged to Martin Hale.
"So he was here," Adrian said.
Reed raised a hand.
"Or someone had his key."
They entered after confirming the room was empty.
Nothing looked disturbed.
The bed was made.
The curtains were open.
An untouched bottle of water stood on the desk.
Claire walked slowly toward the window.
"Why use an empty room?"
Nobody answered.
She looked at the desk lamp.
Beside it was a hotel notepad with the top sheet removed.
Claire tilted the pad toward the light.
Faint pressure marks remained on the page beneath.
Adrian saw what she was doing.
"Can you read it?"
"Maybe."
Reed stopped her from shading it with a pencil and called the investigator instead.
The page was photographed under angled light.
Several words became visible.
BLUE ACCESS.
8:10.
SERVICE C.
And one set of initials.
M.H.
Adrian exhaled.
"Martin Hale."
Claire looked at the writing.
"Maybe."
"Those are his initials."
"Or someone wanted us to think they were."
Adrian studied her.
"You really don't trust easy answers."
"Easy answers got your mother put under a chandelier."
That ended the argument.
Reed checked the bathroom.
Behind the door, he found a discarded blue-striped contractor badge.
Daniel Cross.
The photograph had been peeled away.
Paige, who had followed with the investigator, looked sick.
"Someone built a fake employee identity inside an empty room."
The investigator bagged the badge.
Then Claire noticed something beneath the dresser.
A narrow strip of burgundy fabric.
She reached toward it before Reed stopped her.
"Don't touch."
He used gloves to retrieve it.
Claire recognized the material immediately.
It matched the decorative lanyards worn by Whitmore Foundation staff.
Adrian did too.
"That doesn't prove anything," he said.
But his voice had changed.
The investigator asked who had been wearing burgundy staff lanyards that night.
Paige pulled up the internal event roster.
Thirty-two names appeared.
One was Martin Hale.
Another was Graham Vale.
Claire's phone vibrated.
She glanced down.
An unknown number had sent a photograph.
It showed Claire being carried across the ballroom in Adrian's arms.
Under the photograph was a single sentence.
YOU NOTICED TOO MUCH.
Claire stared at the message until the words blurred.
The photograph had been taken from the north side of the ballroom, close to the service corridor.
May you like
That meant the sender had not merely heard about her.
The sender had been watching her before Adrian carried her away.
