Chapter 5 - The Archive That Answered Back
For eighteen minutes, they were trapped in B17. Victoire paced. Mireille waited. Sébastien remained almost too calm.
Then the steel door clicked open.
Head of security Vincent Renaud stood outside with two guards.
"The building accepted a legacy override from the archive level," he said.
Elise stepped out. "Who went down there?"
"No one on camera."
"Then your cameras are useless."
Vincent's jaw tightened. "Three cameras went offline at the same moment."
Sébastien spread his hands. "Old wiring."
"You say that a lot," Elise replied.
They moved deeper into the original wing, through a stone corridor built before the modern hotel existed.
At the end stood a black door with no handle.
Elise's father had called it the room for bad days.
She had not entered since his funeral.
The Founder badge unlocked it.
Inside, nothing looked disturbed.
Leather files.
Old ledgers.
A wall safe.
Her father's drafting table.
Then Elise noticed the dust.
A clean rectangle on the table.
Something had recently been removed.
"What was here?" Antoine asked.
Elise knew.
A red leather binder.
Her father kept original property deeds inside it.
She crossed to the wall safe.
The lock accepted her code.
Empty.
Mireille whispered, "Oh, no."
Sébastien stepped closer. "What?"
Elise turned.
"The original deed to the south bluff is gone."
His face showed concern at exactly the right speed.
"Then whoever did this is serious."
"Who has access to this room?"
"You."
"Anyone else?"
He hesitated.
"Your father once gave temporary authority to my mother."
"Aunt Isabelle has been dead six years."
"I know."
Antoine crouched by the old access panel.
"There's a manual log."
He removed a narrow paper strip.
One mechanical imprint appeared from the previous night.
Badge code: F-03.
Elise stared at the badge in her own hand.
F-03.
The missing third Founder badge.
Except hers had never been missing.
Her father had given it to her privately before he died.
Which meant one of two things.
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The system had been cloned.
Or someone had built a fourth badge.
