Chương 8
“His lawyer hasn’t arrived yet,” Ortiz replied. “Reality is still negotiable.”
“Can I speak to him?”
“No.”
“Can I stand where he can see me while you speak to him?”
“No.”
“Can you ask whether Grant Heller contacted him last night?”
“I can ask whatever I decide is relevant.”
Claire waited.
Ortiz sighed. “I’ll call you.”
The ballroom attack had made Claire famous enough that leaving Reed’s townhouse through the front door was impossible. She borrowed a navy coat from Duvall and used the garage, but two photographers recognized Ethan’s sedan before it reached the corner.
At ten, Claire stood in Reed Maritime’s headquarters on Park Avenue while employees pretended not to look at her.
The lobby contained a twenty-foot steel sculpture shaped like a ship’s hull cut open lengthwise. Claire had worked around wealthy people long enough to know that expensive art often resembled damaged machinery.
A security guard at the desk lowered his eyes when she approached.
His phone, lying beside the visitor log, displayed a paused frame of Claire pinning Nolan to the gold chair.
He turned the screen facedown.
“Good morning,” Claire said.
“Morning, ma’am.”
“Did you enjoy the video?”
His face reddened. “My wife sent it.”
“Did she approve?”
“She said you should’ve broken his arm.”
“What did you say?”
“That paperwork would be bad.”
Claire smiled despite herself. “Your wife has instinct. You have judgment. Keep both.”
The guard’s shoulders relaxed.
She asked for his name. Malcolm Reyes. Six years with the company. Hired by Heller. He had received no updated instructions after Heller resigned except to report operational matters to Ethan.
“Who controls building access now?” Claire asked.
“Technically Mr. Cole.”
“Practically?”
Malcolm glanced toward the elevators.
“Mr. Heller still calls people.”
“When was the last time?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“What did he want?”
“To know if the executive boardroom had been swept.”
“For Monday?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him?”
Malcolm’s discomfort answered before he did.
“He was my boss for six years,” he said. “I didn’t think—”
“Most breaches begin with someone not wanting to be rude.”
Claire asked him to write down everything Heller had requested since resigning. Then she had him call every security station and instruct them that Heller no longer possessed authority.
“You want me to say he’s banned?”
“I want you to say he must be treated like any other visitor.”
“That’ll sound like banned.”
“People hear what helps them remember.”
On the forty-second floor, Heller’s former office remained intact.
No one had boxed his belongings because Reed had expected him to reconsider. His dark suit jacket hung behind the door. Two framed photographs sat on the credenza: a younger Heller beside Reed at a shipyard, and Heller’s father shaking hands with Reed’s father beneath a banner dated 1998.
A ceramic cup held three pens and a golf pencil. A drawer stuck halfway open.
Claire pulled it gently, then harder. It came free with a scrape and revealed aspirin, a phone charger, restaurant receipts, and a folded paper napkin with the name M. Trent written beside a number.
She did not touch it.
Ethan photographed the drawer and called Ortiz.
“M. Trent,” Claire said. “Any vendor or employee?”
Ethan searched the company directory. “No.”
“Hotel staff?”
“I’ll ask.”
He studied her across the desk. “You could look pleased.”
“Why?”
“You found something.”
“I found initials on a napkin.”
“That is apparently the difference between us. I take small victories.”
Claire looked at the stuck drawer. “That must be nice.”
He waited, perhaps expecting more.
She did not give him any.
The hotel employment list arrived twenty minutes later. One banquet supervisor scheduled for the gala had been listed as Maya Trent. Her personnel file contained a copied driver’s license, tax form, and temporary staffing agreement.
The real Maya Trent lived in Ohio and had never worked in New York.
The photograph on the copied license belonged to her. The woman captured by a hallway camera near the ballroom wore a mask, a black banquet jacket, and a cap that concealed most of her face. She was roughly the same height and build.
At eight forty-one, she stood beside the missing tablet.
At nine four, she entered the service pantry carrying a white cup.
At nine nine, Nolan crossed the ballroom toward Claire.
At nine thirteen, every camera covering the tea service went dark for eighty-three seconds.
The outage had been authorized using a maintenance override assigned to Grant Heller.
“That seems less like initials on a napkin,” Ethan said.
Claire replayed the footage.
The false Maya Trent kept her face down. When a chef passed, she lifted one hand to move a tray aside.
A silver ring flashed on her middle finger.
The ring curved around the finger like a snake.
Claire wrote the detail on her pad but did not circle it.
Heller called at eleven thirty.
He asked to speak with Reed. When Ethan refused, Heller asked for Claire.
She took the call in his office.
“You’re sitting in my chair,” he said.
Claire looked down. The chair was black leather, expensive, and slightly too large for her.
“Yes.”
“The left arm wobbles.”
She tested it. He was right.
“What do you want?”
“To help.”
“You could start by explaining why your credentials shut down ballroom cameras.”
A pause.
“They didn’t.”
“The log says they did.”
“Then the log is wrong or the credentials were stolen.”
“Like Ethan’s.”
“Exactly like Ethan’s.”
His answer came too quickly, but a quick answer was not necessarily a lie.
Claire asked, “Who is M. Trent?”
Heller breathed once into the phone.
The reaction was small. It was enough.
“Where did you find that name?”
“In your office.”
“You had no right to search my office.”
“It belongs to Reed Maritime.”
“That is not how Adrian treated it when I asked to search his.”
Claire leaned back in the loose chair. The left arm shifted beneath her elbow.
May you like
“What did he refuse?”
“Call records. Personal accounts. His family office. Anything that might have embarrassed him more than dying.”
