Chapter 13 - The Missing Box
The archive room was empty when Claire arrived.
Not empty of documents.
Empty of the one box Richard Vale wanted.
The hotel’s original renovation records were stored in a climate-controlled basement room protected by electronic access.
Only Claire, Evan, Luis, and the hotel controller had authorization.
Yet someone had opened the room using Claire’s credentials at 12:47 p.m.
Twenty-three minutes later, Claire discovered Box P-14 missing.
Marcus went pale when she told him the number.
“What was in it?”
Claire asked.
He rubbed his forehead.
“Old partnership documents.”
“You knew exactly which box.”
“I prepared your father’s estate inventory.”
Evan slammed a hand against the steel shelving.
“So whoever stole it knew the inventory.”
Luis checked camera footage.
Nothing.
The basement camera had gone dark for nine minutes.
Claire turned to him.
“Inside job?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Who knows the camera network?”
“Me. Two IT engineers. Security operations.”
“Get everyone.”
Within an hour, seven employees were sitting in separate conference rooms.
Claire interviewed them herself.
Most were confused.
One was terrified.
His name was Jason Merritt, a twenty-six-year-old overnight IT technician who had joined the hotel four months earlier.
He kept wiping sweat from his palms.
Claire sat across from him.
“Jason, someone used my credentials.”
“I know.”
“You changed the authentication system last month.”
“Yes.”
“Can credentials be copied?”
“No.”
“Can they be duplicated?”
He hesitated.
Claire noticed.
“Jason.”
“They could be cloned if someone had access to your phone.”
Evan looked at Claire.
Her phone was rarely outside her control.
Then she remembered.
Three weeks earlier, she had attended a charity dinner in Manhattan.
Her phone had disappeared for twelve minutes.
A waiter later “found” it beneath a cocktail table.
Claire had assumed she dropped it.
“Who paid you?” she asked.
Jason looked horrified.
“Nobody.”
“Then why are you scared?”
His eyes filled.
“My sister.”
Claire waited.
Jason swallowed.
“She works for Pendelton & Myers.”
Arthur Pendelton’s law firm.
Evan leaned forward.
“Doing what?”
“Records management.”
Jason’s breathing became uneven.
“Two weeks ago, she called me crying. She said someone at the firm had accused her of stealing privileged documents. They told her they would press charges unless she helped with something.”
“What?”
“She had to give them information about the hotel network.”
Claire felt anger rise slowly.
“Did she?”
Jason nodded.
“I told her basic information. Nothing sensitive. I swear.”
“Enough to steal my credentials?”
“I didn’t know what they were doing.”
Claire believed him.
That did not make the situation less dangerous.
Marcus called the police.
By four o’clock, Jason’s sister had agreed to speak with investigators.
Her name was Natalie Merritt.
She arrived shaking.
Claire placed water in front of her.
Natalie looked barely older than her brother.
“Mr. Pendelton wasn’t the one running it,” she said immediately.
“Who was?”
“A consultant.”
“Name?”
“I never met him.”
“Description?”
“Forties. Maybe fifty. Bald. Scar on his chin.”
Evan and Claire exchanged looks.
Not Grant.
Not Richard.
“A third person,” Evan said.
Natalie nodded.
“He made me photograph old client indexes. Anything with the names Holloway, Vale, or Claire’s father.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you steal the archive box?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
Natalie began crying.
“I think so.”
She reached into her handbag.
Evan tensed.
Natalie slowly removed a hotel employee photograph.
Claire recognized the man.
Samuel Reed.
Assistant facilities manager.
He had worked at the hotel since construction.
“Sam?” Claire whispered.
“He met the consultant twice.”
Luis immediately called security.
Samuel was gone.
His apartment had been emptied.
His company phone lay inside his locker.
At 6:30, Rhode Island State Police located his truck abandoned beside Route 95.
No sign of Samuel.
No sign of Box P-14.
But inside the truck, investigators found blood on the steering wheel.
Claire stared at the photograph sent by police.
Evan stood behind her.
“This just changed.”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t a property dispute anymore.”
“No.”
Marcus entered quietly.
“There’s something else.”
Claire looked at him.
He held a document.
“I found a duplicate inventory from your father’s estate.”
Claire took it.
Box P-14 was listed.
Under contents were five words.
ORIGINAL VALE PARTNERSHIP RELEASE — EXECUTED.
Claire’s pulse quickened.
“Release?”
Marcus nodded.
“If that document says what I think it says, Richard Vale signed away every right he had to the property.”
Evan frowned.
“Then why steal it?”
Marcus’s face darkened.
“Because without the original, Richard’s claim becomes much stronger.”
Claire looked at the blood inside Samuel’s truck.
Then at the missing release.
Someone was not simply helping Grant destroy her.
May you like
Someone was willing to hurt people to rewrite history.
And Claire had the terrifying feeling Grant Holloway had partnered with a man he could no longer control.
