Chapter 3 - The Safe
I had put the original flash drive in the bridal suite safe at 3:10 that afternoon.
At the time, it felt paranoid.
Now it felt like the smartest decision I had made all week.
Vincent escorted Maya and me upstairs through a staff elevator. Two hotel guards were already outside the suite.
Daniel stood ten feet away with Patricia and a man I recognized from Mercer Construction’s outside accounting firm.
Daniel lifted both hands.
“I just need my laptop charger.”
“You told the manager you needed the safe opened,” I said.
His expression hardened.
Patricia stepped forward. “Elena, enough. A private disagreement has already humiliated this family.”
“A private disagreement?” Maya said. “Your son assaulted her in a ballroom.”
Patricia looked at Maya as if she had found gum on her shoe.
“This does not concern you.”
“It does now.”
Vincent opened the suite for me but refused everyone else entry.
Inside, the flowers still looked perfect. My shoes were beside the bed. Daniel’s tuxedo jacket hung over a chair as if we were still supposed to come upstairs laughing at midnight.
I opened the safe.
The original flash drive was gone.
For several seconds, I could not move.
Maya looked over my shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
A folded hotel envelope sat where the drive had been.
Inside was a single typed sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SERVED THE WHISKEY.
I walked back into the hall holding the note.
Daniel’s confusion looked real for exactly one second.
Then the accountant beside Patricia looked at the floor.
I noticed.
“So,” I said. “Who opened the safe?”
Vincent immediately called the front desk.
The electronic lock log came back within minutes.
The safe had been opened at 7:42 p.m.
That was fourteen minutes before Patricia handed me the tray.
And the override code had been requested by someone using the name of the wedding planner.
May you like
The problem was simple.
Our wedding planner had left the hotel at six.
