CHAPTER 6: ELEVEN MISSING MINUTES
Mara was not only Amelia’s sister.
She was also an attorney who specialized in corporate investigations.
By noon, she had contacted the hotel’s insurance company, the city elevator inspector, and a private security firm.
The Monarch Grand Hotel had forty-two cameras covering the lobby and service corridors.
Only one camera faced the elevator control room.
That camera had stopped recording at 12:09 a.m.
The elevator lost power at 12:20.
Eleven minutes were missing.
Mara sat beside Amelia’s hospital bed with her laptop open.
“The hotel claims it was a system error.”
Amelia looked through the glass wall toward the NICU.
“Do you believe them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the other cameras kept recording.”
Mara enlarged an image.
It showed Claire walking through a service hallway at 12:06.
She was not alone.
A man in a dark jacket walked beside her.
His face was hidden by a baseball cap.
Three minutes later, the control-room camera went black.
“Is that Ethan?” Amelia asked.
“I don’t know.”
“He was wearing a firefighter uniform at the event.”
“He could have changed.”
Amelia looked away.
Part of her still wanted the man in the image to be anyone else.
A nurse entered.
“Someone delivered this for you.”
She placed a small envelope on the table.
There was no return address.
Mara opened it carefully.
Inside was a hotel key card and a handwritten note.
Amelia read the words twice.
THE ELEVATOR DID NOT FAIL.
Mara turned the card over.
It belonged to Room 1908.
“Who stayed there?” Amelia asked.
Mara searched the hotel registry.
Her fingers stopped over the keyboard.
“The room was reserved under Claire Whitmore’s name.”
Amelia stared at the key card.
“Why would Claire send this?”
“She probably didn’t.”
A second message was written beneath the first.
ASK ETHAN WHY HE WAS IN ROOM 1908 BEFORE THE GALA.
Amelia closed her eyes.
She no longer knew which hurt more.
May you like
The possibility that Ethan had met Claire in that room…
Or the growing fear that the stalled elevator had never been an accident.
