Chapter 3 - Basement Two
"What building?" I asked.
Nobody answered.
Ruth was shaking so hard her radio rattled against her name tag. "I have a daughter," she whispered. "They know where she goes to school."
For one second I saw how Pike had kept this hotel quiet: not loyalty. Fear.
"I won't put your daughter in danger," I said. "But I need a route downstairs."
She slid a housekeeping master key across the cart. "The linen stairs. South end. That's all I can do."
I handed Owen my phone. "Stay where people can see you. Send that recording to the dispatcher if I don't call in five minutes."
"Lena—"
"Please."
Below the first basement, the air smelled of hot metal and detergent. A freight door stood open beside an empty rolling cage.
A strip of yellow fabric was caught in the cage latch. Iris's apron.
"Iris?"
A man stepped from the loading office. He wore a contractor's jacket with a patch reading NORTHLINE FACILITIES.
"Employee-only area," he said.
"I'm an employee."
"Not anymore."
He lunged for my arm. I slipped aside, caught his sleeve, and pushed him into a stack of empty bins. They went down with a crash. I didn't stay to argue.
Behind the cage I found a white envelope wedged into its wheel. On the front, Iris had written in blue pen: LENA—IF HE TAKES ME.
Inside was a photocopy of a document titled ASHBURY HOUSE: FINAL RELOCATION CERTIFICATE. Across the bottom, thirty-one households were listed as moved out.
One name had been circled three times.
JUNE WARD, UNIT 6C.
Iris's older sister. She lived there with her seven-year-old son, Ben. I'd helped Iris carry groceries to their apartment two weeks earlier.
A handwritten note covered the back: Ask them why June's signature is on a paper she never signed.
A phone buzzed underneath the cage. Iris had taped it to the frame before they took her.
May you like
I peeled it free. The screen lit with a message from JUNE:
Iris, somebody chained the fire door. Ben can't breathe. They just turned off our lights.
