Chương 3
Then Emmett’s voice carried down the shaft. “Call the gate. No vehicle leaves.”
The staff worked for him. The guests owed him favors. Witnesses inside Pinecrest might become employees who remembered nothing by morning.
They continued to the basement.
The final steps were damp and uneven. Rosalie’s right ankle buckled near the bottom. Manuel caught her before she fell, but the movement pulled the dress from her hand. The loosened corset opened at the back, revealing the fresh cut and two dark bruises near her spine.
He had to look away for a moment, not from disgust but from the anger arriving too fast.
Rosalie dragged the fabric closed again.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked like you were going to.”
“I was going to ask when you got those bruises.”
“Yesterday.”
“How?”
She glanced upward. The flashlight beam above swept across the stone wall.
“Later.”
They reached an iron door at the bottom. Rosalie pushed it open with her shoulder.
The basement smelled of limestone, boiler heat, and old cooking oil. Copper pipes ran along the ceiling. The room beyond had once been a servants’ kitchen, with cracked tile floors and a row of obsolete ovens. Folding tables now held surplus champagne, boxed linens, and cases of bottled water for the wedding.
An elderly housemaid stood beside the freight elevator.
She wore a gray uniform and clutched a stack of folded napkins against her chest. Manuel recognized her from the corridor outside the suite. She must have come down through the regular stairs after witnessing the confrontation.
Her name tag read ELSIE.
She saw Rosalie’s blood, the open dress, and the poker.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she said.
Rosalie stopped.
Above them, a door opened in the passage.
Elsie dropped the napkins.
She crossed the kitchen faster than her age suggested and pulled open a narrow cupboard beside the old dumbwaiter. Inside, instead of shelves, there was a steel emergency release.
“The loading tunnel,” she said. “It comes out behind the greenhouse.”
“You knew?” Rosalie asked.
“I’ve worked here forty-one years. I know where the rats go.”
Manuel almost smiled. “Is it locked outside?”
“Not unless your father changed it this morning.”
She hauled the release downward. Somewhere behind the old ovens, machinery clanked. A section of tiled wall shifted outward.
Footsteps reached the final stair turn.
Elsie gathered the fallen napkins, stacked them on a table as though that mattered, and nodded toward the opening.
“Go.”
Rosalie did not move. “He’ll fire you.”
“He was going to fire me after Christmas. Apparently I fold corners wrong.”
“Elsie—”
“I am eighty-one years old, and I have a union pension from the first hotel. Your father can write me a poem about it.”
The wall opened wide enough for them to pass.
Manuel touched Elsie’s shoulder. “Come with us.”
She shook him off. “Two security guards chasing an old woman in orthopedic shoes will look suspicious. I’m staying where the cameras can see me.”
There were cameras in the basement. Manuel spotted one above the elevator, its red indicator lit.
Elsie raised her voice as the security men emerged from the passage.
“Mrs. Nelson went that way,” she called, pointing toward the boiler room.
The first guard hesitated.
The second guard looked directly at the displaced wall.
Elsie sighed. “Well, I tried.”
Manuel pulled Rosalie into the tunnel and shoved the panel closed. A guard reached it a second too late, his hand striking the other side.
The tunnel was low, brick-lined, and cold enough to turn their breath visible. Weak utility lights came on automatically in sections ahead. Manuel kept one arm around Rosalie’s waist while they moved. The wedding gown dragged through dirt and old water. White lace became gray along the hem.
At the far end, a steel door opened beneath a flight of outdoor steps. Pinecrest’s greenhouse glowed fifty yards away, its glass walls lit gold from within. Beyond it lay the service road and a line of parked vendor vans.
Music from the ballroom drifted across the lawn.
The quartet was playing a waltz.
For a few seconds the ordinary sound made the night seem impossible. Waiters carried trays past tall windows. Guests moved in formal silhouettes. Somewhere inside, people were eating cake with Manuel and Rosalie’s initials piped in white icing.
Maya spoke from the phone. “I can hear music. Are you outside?”
“Behind the greenhouse.”
“Police are at the gate. Security says there is a private family emergency and denies consent to enter.”
“Can police just accept that?”
“On private property, without visible danger or a warrant, they’re being careful. I told dispatch there was an unlawful restraint and possible assault. Rosalie needs to speak to them directly.”
Manuel held out the phone.
She stared at it.
“Rosalie,” Maya said, “you don’t have to explain everything. Tell them you are injured, you fear your father, and you are being prevented from leaving.”
Rosalie looked toward the estate. Light shone from the windows of the bridal suite. A figure moved behind the curtains.
Her father had spent years training her to mistrust the moment when help required her own voice. Complaints became episodes. Fear became instability. Resistance became proof that she could not manage herself.
Manuel kept the phone extended but did not push it closer.
Rosalie took it.
“My name is Rosalie Durham Nelson,” she said. The new surname caught slightly in her throat. “I’m at Pinecrest Estate. My father’s employees are following me. I’m bleeding from an injury, and his doctor is carrying medication I did not consent to receive.”
Maya said, “Good. Keep going.”
“My father has confined me before. I believe he intends to do it again.”
The service door behind them slammed open.
The two guards emerged from beneath the steps.
Manuel stepped between them and Rosalie. The larger man cradled the hand Manuel had struck with the poker. His face was tight with embarrassment.
May you like
“Mr. Nelson,” he said, “don’t make this worse.”
“You broke into a locked bedroom.”
