Chapter 2 - A Job That Was Supposed to Be Quiet
"Turn in your badge," Pike told me outside the ballroom.
"I haven't been fired."
"Mrs. Sterling says you have."
"She's not Mrs. Vale yet." I looked at the lanyard peeking from his pocket. "Where's June?"
Pike covered it with his hand. "Go home, Calder."
Six months earlier, I'd taken the housekeeping job at the Hollis Grand because my mother needed rides to physical therapy and I needed a schedule that didn't require disappearing for weeks. After eight years guarding executives, threatened witnesses, and one very frightened family, polishing brass seemed like a reasonable way to live.
It was, until Vanessa moved into the penthouse to plan her engagement gala.
She'd made me reclean spotless mirrors. She'd spilled wine beside my cart, then photographed the stain. On Tuesday she called me "furniture that talks." I could have walked away. I stayed because June had come to me with something more important than insults.
"You have the wrong end of the story," I told Pike. "That woman tried to kick me. The cameras will show it."
"The cameras belong to the hotel."
"Which means they don't belong to her."
His smile was tired and practiced. "You want a lawsuit? Talk to a lawyer."
From inside the ballroom came applause. A giant screen lit up with photographs of the charity Vanessa ran: Homeward Key, a nonprofit that promised apartments to families who'd survived impossible years. Tonight's guests had paid thousands a plate to keep forty-four families housed.
June's mother was one of those forty-four tenants.
I pushed past Pike into the side hall. He reached for my arm, then reconsidered when I looked at his hand.
At the service elevator, the hotel manager, Evelyn Sato, stood with a tablet pressed to her chest.
"What happened?" she whispered.
May you like
"Vanessa staged an attack. June saw something."
Evelyn looked over my shoulder toward the ballroom. "Then you'd better know this before you do anything else. Graham Vale asked me this morning to make sure you stayed on the gala shift."
