Chapter 6 - The Christmas Tree Camera
The hotel went into lockdown without looking like one.
Guests still drank cocoa beneath the Christmas tree. Children still
waited to meet Santa. Bellmen still carried luggage.
Behind the scenes, Grace replaced access codes, copied servers, and
isolated financial systems.
Ethan tried to keep Lily away from it.
She noticed anyway.
“Why are there new guards?”
“They’re helping.”
“Because of the bad people?”
Ethan sat beside her beneath the giant tree.
“Some grown-ups made bad choices.”
“Like Brittany?”
“Yes.”
“Is Aunt Victoria bad?”
He paused.
“I don’t know yet.”
Lily considered this.
“Mommy said not knowing is allowed.”
Ethan smiled painfully.
“Your mother said a lot of smart things.”
“Also she said you snore.”
“That was misinformation.”
Lily giggled.
A maintenance worker interrupted.
“Mr. Vance, we found something in the tree.”
Inside a decorative wooden star near the base was a tiny wireless camera
pointed toward the lobby.
Grace examined it.
“Live transmitter.”
“Who installed it?”
“We’re checking.”
Footage from security cameras showed a hotel electrician placing the
ornament three weeks earlier.
He had vanished that morning.
Then Grace discovered three more cameras: outside Ethan’s suite, near
the employee elevators, and in the corridor leading to Sarah’s portrait.
Someone had watched Ethan find the key.
That night, a fire alarm sounded on the seventeenth floor.
Guests poured into stairwells.
Ethan grabbed Lily.
“Stay with me.”
Smoke seeped from a linen closet.
Sprinklers activated.
In the confusion, someone seized Mateo from behind.
The boy screamed.
Rosa swung a metal serving tray into the attacker’s arm.
“Let him go!”
The masked man shoved Rosa aside and ran.
Grace’s team tackled him near the service stairs.
Mateo sobbed against Elena.
Lily stood frozen.
Ethan knelt before her.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes found his.
“Not the noise,” he said, remembering how Sarah used to calm her. “Me.”
“Are we safe?”
“Right now, yes.”
The attacker carried no identification.
But in his pocket was a Bellweather executive access card.
Assigned to Victoria.
Ethan confronted her in the boardroom.
She stared at the card.
“That was stolen.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“You think I sent someone after a child?”
“I think you knew about North Star.”
“I knew Michael was investigating it.”
“You lied.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was Mateo. He still told the truth.”
That landed.
Victoria sat down.
“Franklin called me after Michael died. He said if I kept digging, you
would be next.”
“And you believed him?”
“He sent me photographs of Lily.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“Lily was one.”
“I know.”
“You had photographs of my baby being watched and said nothing?”
“I thought silence protected her.”
Ethan slammed his hand onto the table.
“No. Silence protected them.”
Victoria began crying.
“I know that now.”
Grace entered.
“We identified the attacker.”
“Who?”
“Former North Star contractor.”
“Who paid him?”
“Payment came from an account opened in Michael Vance’s name.”
Victoria whispered, “Michael is dead.”
Grace placed a recent ATM image on the table.
A hooded man stood at the machine.
His face was partly visible.
Victoria made a broken sound.
Ethan stared at the image of his brother.
Older.
May you like
Bearded.
Alive.
