Chapter 4 - The Stranger in Our Hallway
A woman in a gray coat stood beside the guest-room door. She was about forty, with tired eyes and a phone held at her side.
I dropped my hands. "Who are you?"
"Nina Salcedo. Corporate security. June asked me to come through the service entrance. Your housekeeper let me in." She looked at the open suitcase. "Please tell me you haven't carried that outside."
"I moved it. From mine to hers." Saying it aloud made me feel sick. "I wasn't thinking."
"You were terrified. But don't move it again." Nina lowered her voice. "I saw you through the hallway camera. It caught what you did. The bedroom camera had been disconnected two days ago."
"There are cameras in my house?"
"Exterior and hallway only. You approved them after last year's break-in." She turned her phone toward me. "June pulled the recordings before someone could erase them."
On the screen, Marta entered my room at 1:08 with an object in her hand. A minute later, she came out without it. Not proof of the powder itself, but proof of where she'd gone. Nina had also recorded my confused, panicked move. No hiding it now.
"We call a lawyer and the authorities," Nina said. "Every second we wait gives them time to change their story."
"Carlos has contacts at the airport. He said he'd arranged a tip."
"Then we need people he doesn't control. June knows someone in an independent financial-crimes unit who can coordinate with airport investigators."
I stared at Marta's expensive luggage, at the polished zipper and the brass name tag. "I wanted her to go through what she wanted for me."
"I know. But we win by telling the truth, including the part you don't like."
From the master bedroom came a soft electronic chime. Carlos had left his laptop open. Nina glanced toward the noise, then at me.
"There's something else," she said. "Your husband just booked a one-way ticket."
May you like
"To Macau?"
"No. For you. To a country that doesn't have an extradition agreement with his business partner."
