Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Didn't Flinch
I slammed my palm against the elevator's call button. The light changed from white to red: restricted service mode.
"Open it," I told Pike.
"You're suspended."
"Funny. You haven't told me what I did."
Vanessa's voice rose from the ballroom. "She's violent! I want her arrested!"
Pike moved close enough that his breath smelled of peppermint. "Come quietly and your next employer might never hear about tonight."
I'd heard that line years earlier, just before a supervisor tried to make me erase footage of a guard hitting a teenager. Refusing cost me that job. It was why I cleaned hotel bathrooms now.
I started recording.
"Iris Ward signaled for help," I said clearly. "Her badge is in the security chief's pocket. She was taken into a restricted elevator at nine fourteen."
Pike snatched at my wrist. I stepped back, keeping the phone above his reach.
A young man carrying a shoulder-mounted camera emerged from the ballroom.
"Owen," I said. I knew him from weddings. "Keep filming."
Pike froze. "This is a staff matter."
"Then you won't mind a witness," Owen replied.
A hotel manager, Ruth Bell, hurried over with two guards. Her eyes darted from my phone to Pike's hand.
"Lena, please," she said. "People are watching."
"Good. Tell maintenance to stop that lift."
Ruth looked at Pike. He shook his head once.
So that was two people who could stop the elevator and weren't trying.
I called 911. I gave the dispatcher the hotel, the service floor, Iris's name, and what I'd heard. Pike walked off mid-call, talking urgently into his radio.
Owen lowered his camera just enough to whisper, "I caught the whole kick. Before it happened, Vanessa asked me to move so the photographers had a clear shot of you."
"Save the original file. Not a clip."
He nodded.
A radio crackled on Ruth's belt. A man said, "Freight car at B-two. Passenger removed."
Ruth tried to silence it.
I grabbed the back of a rolling laundry cart to steady myself.
Passenger removed. Not released.
May you like
From the radio came another voice, much smaller than the first.
"Please," Iris said. "My sister's still in that building."
