Chapter 4
The reporter angled her phone toward the open doorway.
“Are the children inside, Mr. Martin?”
I stepped into the hall and pulled the suite door nearly shut behind me. Not enough to lock Anna and the twins in, just enough to keep the camera from finding them.
“You can ask me questions out here,” I said. “You can’t film my guests.”
“They’re not guests, are they?”
Her eyes tried to slip past my shoulder. I shifted to block the view.
A hotel guard approached from the far end of the corridor, stopping well short of the officers’ path. I told him to keep press and cameras off the guest floor—not police, not staff, not anyone Anna asked to see. Then I called Officer Bell and told her where we were going.
“We’re moving to the staff lounge by the service corridor,” I said. “I want the route recorded, and I want you to know we’re not leaving the hotel.”
“Understood,” Bell said. “I’ll meet you there.”
The reporter heard enough to lift her phone again.
“Is that Officer Bell? Are you hiding the children from their father?”
I let the silence answer what I wouldn’t. Then I went back inside.
Anna stood with Emma in her arms. Ethan was beside the sofa, clutching his elephant and watching the door. The little pink sneaker was still on the marble near the bed.
“Staff lounge,” I said. “Bell is meeting us there. The reporter stays in the corridor.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed.
“Does Julian know that route?”
“I don’t know.”
It was the answer she needed, even if it wasn’t the one she wanted. She looked at Ethan, then at the open doorway.
“Then we go together.”
I offered to carry the bag of clothes. Anna shook her head and took it herself. I held the door while Ethan walked between us, his small hand wrapped around two of my fingers and the elephant’s trunk. Emma rested her cheek against Anna’s shoulder, awake now, following each passing light with wary eyes.
The guard led us by the service corridor, leaving the public elevator behind. At the junction, he wrote down the time and our names in the route log. It was a small gesture, but Anna glanced at the page before we passed it, checking that nobody had been left out.
The staff lounge smelled of coffee that had sat too long on a warmer. A pale strip of fluorescent light buzzed over the table. It was ordinary and unpretty, which seemed to help Anna breathe.
Officer Bell arrived a few minutes later with her partner. She kept the disputed agreement in a clear sleeve, its creased edge visible through the plastic.
“I brought it because Anna asked to see it,” Bell said. “It stays with me.”
Anna set Emma down in a chair and stepped closer. She studied the paper without touching it.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she leaned nearer to the signature.
“That isn’t how I signed my name.”
Bell watched her carefully. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Anna looked up, her voice steadier now.
“He copied it from my old lease.”
I glanced at the signature. The final letters swept in a smooth, practiced curve. It looked convincing until Anna pointed to the first letter, where a tiny loop had been reproduced too neatly.
“I used to make that loop,” she said. “I stopped years ago because my hand cramped. The lease was the last thing I signed that way.”
“Do you still have a copy?” I asked.
“Not with me. But I took pictures when the housing office asked for the lease.”
She pulled out her phone, then paused with her thumb over the screen. Her face tightened as though even searching her own files might give someone another way to reach her.
“You don’t have to show it to me,” Bell said. “If you want, you can show me.”
Anna unlocked the phone. She found the photograph and held it beside the agreement, careful not to hand over the device. The old lease had a signature with the same shape, the same broad loop, the same misplaced flourish Julian had copied onto the care agreement.
But Anna’s current signature, on the housing forms she’d kept in another image, was smaller and plainer.
Bell studied both.
“I’ll note what you’ve shown me,” she said. “I’m not making a conclusion from one comparison.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Anna replied.
Her eyes stayed on the phone. Her thumb trembled once, then stopped.
I had watched people mistake fear for confusion before. It was easy to do when someone’s voice shook. Anna’s voice wasn’t shaking now. She had found a detail and held on to it until the paper revealed what it was.
Bell made a brief note. “That gives us something specific to check.”
A knock sounded at the lounge door. Rosa Mendez, a housekeeper with a folded stack of towels balanced against her hip, stood outside. She looked from Bell to Anna, then to me.
“Mr. Martin, I need to tell you something.”
I opened the door wider.
Rosa came in, leaving the towels on a chair. Her hands were red from the cleaning solution she used on the service carts.
“I saw Mr. Voss near the staff entrance tonight,” she said. “Before the police came.”
Bell’s expression sharpened.
“You’re certain it was him?”
“I saw him in the lobby earlier. I recognized him when he was by the service door.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No.” Rosa pressed her lips together. “I was taking linen down. He turned when the door opened, then walked away.”
“Did you see anyone let him in?”
“I didn’t.”
Rosa looked at Anna, then down at the towels, as if she wished she could fold the moment smaller.
“I should have said something sooner.”
“You’re saying it now,” Anna told her. “That matters.”
The words landed gently, but Rosa’s shoulders didn’t relax. Bell asked her to describe what she had seen and when. Rosa gave her best estimate, admitting when she wasn’t sure. No dramatic certainty. No easy answer. Just a witness putting a piece of the night where it belonged.
When Bell finished, she stepped outside to call the officer downstairs. I followed her into the short corridor beyond the lounge door.
“Someone may have gotten onto a staff route before the officers arrived,” I said.
“Possibly,” Bell replied. “I’m not treating it as proof of anything by itself.”
“I want the access records and camera status for that entrance.”
“I want them too.”
The answer didn’t comfort me. It only meant we were asking the same question.
I called Derek Shaw, our head of security. He picked up on the third ring.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Security office.”
“Come to the staff lounge. We need the service entrance logs and the camera footage from tonight.”
A pause.
“The camera stopped recording at midnight,” Derek said.
I looked at the dark lens mounted above the corridor door. Its tiny indicator light was off.
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet. It may be a system fault.”
“Then bring the raw access log.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I can give you the incident report.”
“I asked for the raw log.”
“Those records need to be reviewed before they’re circulated.”
“I own the hotel, Derek.”
“And there are officers involved now. If you start pulling files without documenting the request, it could make the hotel look guilty.”
He said it like a warning meant to protect me. Through the lounge door, I could see Anna standing beside Emma, one hand resting on her daughter’s small shoulder. Ethan had settled on the floor with his elephant in his lap, but his eyes kept returning to the adults.
“Document my request,” I said. “Then bring me the raw log.”
“I’m not releasing it until I’ve reviewed it.”
May you like
The camera above us stayed dark.
So did Derek’s screen, somewhere in the security office, while the only record of who had passed through that door remained in his hands.
