Chapter 8 - Maya's Apartment
Police reached Maya’s building in six minutes.
Sophia arrived four minutes after that and hated herself for every second she had spent in the car imagining the worst.
Maya was safe.
Her door was not.
The frame had split near the lock, but the intruders fled when neighbors opened their doors.
A hallway camera captured two men in caps running toward the stairs.
One of them carried a company garment bag.
Ortiz stared at the still image. “That’s either incredibly stupid or very deliberate.”
“Deliberate,” Sophia said. “They want us to know this is connected.”
Maya sat wrapped in a blanket on her couch.
“I don’t have another copy.”
Sophia crouched beside her. “They don’t know that.”
Maya looked terrified. “What if they come back?”
“They won’t find you here tomorrow.”
Edward arranged a hotel room under another name and private security approved by police.
Before leaving, Maya grabbed Sophia’s wrist.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
Sophia waited.
“Rachel didn’t quit.”
“What?”
“Monica told everyone she quit. But Rachel called me the next day. She said Grant made her sign a separation letter.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She said she was going to stay with her sister in Queens.”
Maya swallowed.
“She also said if anything happened, I should look inside the hem of the blue sample gown.”
Atelier Cole had hundreds of blue gowns.
Sophia asked, “Which one?”
Maya closed her eyes, trying to remember.
Then she whispered an inventory number.
AC-0912.
Edward looked it up from his phone.
His face tightened.
“That gown was sold this morning.”
“To who?”
Edward turned the screen toward Sophia.
May you like
The purchaser name read:
MONICA HALE.
