Chapter 3 - Room 1708.
The elevator dropped six inches.
Sloane screamed.
Claire grabbed the railing.
The lights went black.
For two seconds, there was nothing except breathing.
Then emergency lights glowed red along the floor.
The elevator speaker crackled again.
“Claire.”
Julian’s voice sounded distant now.
“Give security the drive.”
Sloane turned toward Claire.
“The drive?”
Claire said nothing.
Julian had just made his first mistake.
Sloane heard it too.
“What drive, Julian?”
Silence.
Sloane looked at Claire.
“You have something.”
Claire’s hand remained inside her apron pocket.
“I have insurance.”
“Against him?”
“Against everyone involved.”
Sloane slowly nodded.
“Good.”
The elevator suddenly restarted.
It moved upward.
Claire frowned.
“You did that?”
Sloane held up her phone.
“No signal.”
The doors opened onto seventeen.
The hallway was completely empty.
Sloane stepped out first.
Claire followed.
Unlike the guest floors below, the seventeenth floor was strangely dark.
Several doors had no room numbers.
Security cameras rotated toward them.
Claire felt watched from every direction.
“1708.”
Sloane pointed down the corridor.
They moved quickly.
Room 1708 had no electronic reader.
Only an old-fashioned keyhole.
Claire stopped.
“This isn’t a guest room.”
“No.”
Sloane touched the door.
“This floor was supposedly under renovation.”
“For how long?”
“Almost four years.”
Claire looked at her.
The timeline made her stomach twist.
Sloane reached behind a decorative wall panel beside the door.
She pressed her thumb against a small black scanner.
A green light appeared.
The lock clicked.
Claire stared.
“You knew that was there?”
“No.”
Sloane’s expression hardened.
“But this hotel was built by my grandfather.”
She opened the door.
Darkness waited inside.
Claire smelled antiseptic.
Not hotel soap.
Not cleaning chemicals.
A hospital.
She stepped inside.
A lamp illuminated a narrow room.
There was a bed.
Medical equipment.
An IV stand.
A tray containing pills.
And a woman lying beneath a gray blanket.
Claire stopped breathing.
The woman’s hair was almost entirely white.
Her cheeks were hollow.
Her skin looked translucent beneath the weak light.
But Claire knew the shape of those hands.
She knew the small scar above the left eyebrow.
She knew the necklace resting beside the pillow.
“Mom?”
The woman’s eyes fluttered.
Claire crossed the room so quickly she nearly fell.
She dropped beside the bed.
“Mom.”
Her mother slowly turned her head.
Confusion moved through her face.
Then recognition.
“Claire?”
Claire broke.
She pressed both hands over her mouth.
Her mother began crying.
“You’re alive.”
Claire gripped her hand.
“They told me you died.”
Her mother’s fingers shook.
“They told me the same thing about you.”
Sloane stood frozen near the doorway.
Claire looked at the IV.
“What did they do to you?”
Her mother’s eyes moved toward the hall.
“We have to leave.”
“Who did this?”
Her mother began trembling.
“Not Julian.”
Claire stopped.
“What?”
“He helped them.”
Her mother squeezed her hand weakly.
“But he wasn’t the one who started it.”
Footsteps sounded outside.
Sloane closed the door.
Claire leaned closer.
“Who started it?”
Her mother’s lips barely moved.
“The man who owns this hotel.”
Sloane went white.
“My father?”
Claire’s mother stared at her.
Then slowly shook her head.
“No.”
A shadow appeared beneath the door.
May you like
Her mother whispered.
“Your father.”
