Chapter 13 - THE SECRET IN CAMERA SEVENTEEN
Roland tried to climb back into the vault.
Charlotte stopped him.
“The door cannot be opened from inside.”
“My daughter is out there.”
Charlotte looked at the intercom.
No further sound came from Bianca.
Nora helped Daniel descend the ladder.
Roland followed.
Conrad attempted to push past Charlotte.
She held the ladder opening.
“You are going to tell me what happened to my mother.”
“Not here.”
“Here.”
Smoke drifted through the vault.
Conrad looked toward the sealed door.
Then his shoulders lowered.
“Eleanor discovered the Laurent loans.”
“That is not enough to explain murder.”
“She planned to remove me from the board.”
“So you cut her brakes.”
“No.”
Conrad’s denial came too quickly.
“Adrian hired a mechanic.”
“You paid Adrian.”
“I told him to frighten her.”
Charlotte stepped closer.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“The brake line was supposed to fail after the car reached her driveway.”
Conrad’s voice broke.
“She was supposed to survive.”
“My mother died alone on a mountain road.”
“She was not alone.”
Charlotte stopped breathing.
Conrad looked at the floor.
“Adrian followed her.”
“Why?”
“To retrieve the documents.”
“Did he watch her die?”
Conrad said nothing.
Charlotte remembered Camera Seventeen.
The camera covered the private records corridor.
The archive ledger showed it had been turned off that morning.
But the camera had existed on the night Eleanor died.
Charlotte searched the vault for the hotel’s old surveillance storage.
Her grandfather had insisted that all executive footage be backed up offline.
Behind the share certificates, Charlotte found a row of labeled drives.
She removed the drive from the date of her mother’s death.
Conrad attempted to take it.
Charlotte struck him across the face.
“You touched my mother’s records after she died.”
Conrad staggered backward.
“You have no idea what she was capable of.”
“I know exactly what you are capable of.”
Charlotte climbed down the ladder with the drive.
She closed the floor panel above Conrad.
His fists pounded against it.
“You cannot leave me.”
Charlotte looked up.
“You had me declared dead.”
She turned the brass wheel.
The panel locked.
“This should feel familiar.”
The subway tunnel led to a maintenance entrance across the street from the hotel.
Fire engines surrounded the Solmere.
Guests stood beneath emergency blankets.
Mason saw Charlotte emerge and ran toward her.
“Bianca is alive.”
Relief passed across Roland’s face.
Mason pointed toward an ambulance.
“She was shot in the side, but the doctors believe she will survive.”
Charlotte handed him the surveillance drive.
“Find a machine that can read this.”
Mason connected it to a mobile command unit.
The screen displayed old footage from Camera Seventeen.
Eleanor Vale appeared in the corridor on the night she died.
She was arguing with Adrian.
Then another person entered the frame.
Charlotte moved closer.
The figure was wearing Bianca’s white silk gown.
But the footage was taken three years earlier.
The woman turned toward the camera.
It was not Bianca.
May you like
It was Charlotte’s mother.
And Eleanor was pointing a gun at Adrian.
