Chapter 10 - Smoke over the Archive
Elena slammed the laptop shut and grabbed the recorder. The man lunged across the desk, knocking the photograph to the floor. She dodged him, hit the alarm button beside the door, and shouted for security.
“Someone wanted the recording destroyed,” he said.
“And they know about the archive mirror.”
They went to the basement storage level with Davis and Nora. The corridor was narrow, lined with old furniture and boxes of holiday decorations. At the far end, a red light flashed above the archive door.
“Fire!” Nora shouted.
Owen radioed the control room and pulled the emergency handle. The door was hot. Inside, a waste bin burned beside a shelf of paper ledgers. A sprinkler sputtered once, then died. Owen grabbed an extinguisher while Elena and Davis dragged the nearest boxes away from the flames.
The fire was small, but the smoke filled the room fast. Elena saw a metal cabinet behind a fallen shelf. The label read B2 STORAGE - MIRROR BACKUP. She pushed toward it.
“There are records in here!”
They escaped coughing, soaked, and shaking. The cabinet survived, though its outer casing was blackened. Inside, a hard drive sat in a sealed evidence pouch.
Nora clutched Elena's hand. “Your mother used to say this hotel had a good heart. I was afraid it had lost it.”
“It hasn't,” Elena said. “Not while people are willing to protect each other.”
A police officer arrived to take a statement. Before Elena could finish, her phone began buzzing. News alerts filled the screen.
HOTEL OWNER ACCUSED OF TRESPASSING AND STEALING RECORDS.
The accompanying photo showed Elena in the lobby, cropped so that Victoria's hands were out of frame. Beneath it, a statement from Victoria claimed that an unknown woman had used forged documents to threaten staff. Davis stared at the screen. “She got ahead of us.”
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Elena looked at the burned cabinet.
“No,” she said. “She just told us how afraid she is.”
