Chapter 13 - ROOM 804
Police surrounded the Riverfront Hotel before we arrived.
Nobody let us cross the perimeter. For once, I listened.
Rain started, cold and hard, soaking the shoulders of my borrowed coat. I stood beside Grant under the awning of a closed coffee shop while officers moved through the lobby.
“Did she ever talk about me?” I asked him.
He looked surprised.
“Not much.”
“That tells me enough.”
“No. It tells you she could not talk about you without falling apart.”
I laughed. “She seemed pretty functional while spending my inheritance.”
Grant looked down. “I’m not defending her.”
“Everyone keeps saying that right before they defend her.”
He accepted the hit.
Across the street, a negotiator raised a phone to his ear.
Then a window opened on the eighth floor.
Juliette appeared behind the glass.
Even from that distance, I saw her wedding dress.
Victor had dragged her straight from the ballroom.
She saw the crowd below and pressed one hand to the window.
A shadow moved behind her.
She vanished.
Grant stepped into the street. Marcus grabbed him by the arm.
“Do not make this worse.”
Minutes stretched.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from Juliette.
ROOM 804. HE WANTS THE GREENHOUSE FILES.
Another message appeared.
DON’T BRING THEM.
Then:
CAROLINE I AM SORRY.
My chest hurt.
Sixteen words could not repair three stolen years. They could not give me back my name, my home, my face, or the nights I spent being treated like a criminal for insisting I existed.
But I believed her fear.
I showed Marcus.
Police used the message to confirm the room.
A tactical team entered through the service stairs.
We heard nothing for almost a minute.
Then a sharp crack echoed from inside the hotel.
Grant went white.
May you like
A second later, every officer near the entrance started moving.
And a radio voice said, “Shots fired, eighth floor.”
