Chapter 4 - Room B17
The service elevator would not move under lockdown.
Elise took the stairs.
Sébastien followed.
"This is absurd."
"You can stay upstairs."
"It's my hotel too."
"Then you should know what's in your basement."
Mireille led them past laundry, dry storage, and a locked wine corridor. At the far end stood a gray steel door marked ELECTRICAL.
"Maintenance doesn't use it," she said.
Antoine checked his tablet.
"It's not on the current floor plan."
Sébastien sighed. "Old mechanical space. That's all."
Elise held up the Founder badge.
His eyes went to it.
There.
A tiny reaction.
She touched the badge to the reader.
The door unlocked.
Inside was no mechanical room.
There were two servers, a desk, a document shredder, and shelves of banker boxes.
Victoire stopped at the doorway.
"I have never been in here."
Mireille snorted.
Elise walked to the desk.
A laptop was still warm.
On the screen sat a spreadsheet titled BLUE WING.
Rows of payments.
Parcel numbers.
Loan values.
And one address Elise recognized immediately.
The south bluff.
The most valuable undeveloped land attached to the Domaine.
Her father had refused to sell it for thirty years.
"What is Blue Wing?" she asked.
No answer.
Antoine opened a banker box.
"These are loan documents."
Elise took the top file.
Borrower: Domaine d'Azur Holdings.
Collateral: South Bluff Parcel.
Authorized representative: Elise Morel.
Her signature sat at the bottom.
Perfect.
Except she had never signed it.
Sébastien rubbed a hand over his face.
"Elise, listen to me."
She looked at him.
"You forged my signature."
"I didn't."
"Then who did?"
A sudden grinding sound came from behind them.
The steel door began to close.
Vincent, the security supervisor, shouted and lunged for it.
Too late.
The lock snapped shut.
The basement lights went dark.
Then a red emergency lamp flickered on.
Antoine stared at his dead tablet.
"Someone just overrode the Founder lockdown."
Elise looked toward Sébastien in the red light.
"From where?"
May you like
Antoine's voice shook.
"From the private archive."
