Chapter 10 - CHARLES CROSS’S OFFICE
The fire was a diversion.
By the time Evelyn reached the hotel, sprinklers had soaked the west corridor, but the flames had been limited to a storage room. The ballroom doors were still locked electronically. Guests pounded on them from inside.
Detective Ortiz grabbed Evelyn near the lobby.
“You are not going upstairs alone.”
“Diane controls the locks.”
“We can breach them.”
“And if she has another trigger?”
Ortiz’s jaw tightened.
Evelyn held up the ledger. “Give me two minutes.”
“One.”
Charles Cross’s old office had been preserved on the mezzanine as a sentimental showpiece. Evelyn had not entered it in years.
Diane stood behind the desk.
Preston Vale stood beside the window.
“You,” Evelyn said.
His tuxedo jacket was gone. The red wine stain still marked his white shirt.
He smiled. “I told you the suit was expensive.”
Evelyn looked at Diane. “You tried to kill Lucas?”
Diane’s face hardened. “Don’t be melodramatic.”
“You kidnapped a teenager.”
“That was Preston’s improvisation.”
Preston looked offended. “It worked.”
“You shot at us.”
“Also worked. You moved.”
Evelyn set the ledger on the desk.
“Open the ballroom.”
Diane reached for it.
Evelyn pulled it back.
“First.”
Diane pressed a control on her phone.
Downstairs, a distant mechanical click echoed through the hall.
Ortiz’s voice came through Evelyn’s hidden earpiece. “Doors open. We’re evacuating.”
Preston’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re wired.”
He lunged.
Evelyn threw the ledger across the desk. Diane caught it by instinct.
The office doors burst open.
Police flooded in.
Preston grabbed Diane and shoved her toward them, then smashed a side window with a chair and climbed onto the narrow exterior balcony.
“Stop!” Ortiz shouted.
Preston ran along the ledge toward the adjoining roof.
Diane stared at the officers surrounding her.
Then she began to laugh.
“You think this ends with us?” she said.
Evelyn looked at her.
May you like
Diane’s smile was almost pitying.
“Ask Lucas what his mother never told him about Charles.”
