Chapter 5 - ROOM 417
The knocking came again.
Three slow taps.
Emily looked up from her coloring book.
"Dad?"
I put one finger to my lips.
The officer stationed outside should have announced himself.
He did not.
I moved toward the door without making a sound.
"Who is it?"
Silence.
Then a man's voice.
"Hotel maintenance."
My skin went cold.
"We didn't call maintenance."
"Water leak on the floor, sir."
I looked through the peephole.
A man in a navy work shirt stood with his head lowered.
Baseball cap.
Tool bag.
Average build.
I could not see his face.
The officer who should have been outside was gone.
I stepped backward.
"Call 911," I whispered to Emily.
Her eyes widened.
"Use my phone."
The handle moved.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
The man outside spoke again.
"Mr. Carter?"
I had not used my last name at the hotel desk.
Ruiz had booked the room under an alias.
That told me everything.
"Go away."
The man laughed softly.
"David, we should talk."
Emily was already on the phone with emergency dispatch.
I picked up the lamp again.
"Calvin?"
Silence.
Then the man said, "Open the door."
"Where is Sarah?"
"Open the door."
"Tell me where she is."
"You don't want to do this in front of Emily."
My blood turned to ice.
He knew she was inside.
"Police are coming."
"Police have been coming for years."
The words were strange.
Bitter.
Personal.
"What does that mean?"
No answer.
I heard a faint metallic scrape near the lock.
He was trying something.
"Back away from the door," I shouted.
The lock clicked.
My stomach dropped.
The handle turned halfway.
Then stopped against the secondary latch.
I shoved a chair under the handle.
Emily whispered into the phone.
"He's trying to come in."
The door moved inward less than an inch.
The latch held.
Then a tremendous crash sounded from the hallway.
Someone shouted.
The door stopped moving.
I heard a struggle.
Footsteps.
Another crash.
Then Detective Ruiz's voice.
"Police! Down!"
Emily began crying.
I kept the lamp raised.
Seconds later, Ruiz shouted through the door.
"David, it's me."
"Show me your badge through the peephole."
She did.
I opened the door only after two uniformed officers appeared beside her.
The hallway was empty except for a toppled housekeeping cart.
"Where is he?"
Ruiz's face was furious.
"Stairwell."
"You lost him?"
"He had a service key and knew the camera layout."
"The officer outside?"
"Found unconscious in the linen room."
Emily gasped.
Ruiz immediately added, "He's alive."
"How did Reed know this room?"
"We don't know."
"That's becoming a problem."
"I know."
She looked at the damaged lock.
"Pack everything."
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere not connected to the department."
"Where?"
"I can't tell you until we're moving."
That was not reassuring.
It was necessary.
Twenty minutes later, Emily and I were inside an unmarked SUV with tinted windows.
Ruiz drove.
Detective Hale sat in the front passenger seat.
No radio.
No police computer.
No marked escort.
We drove north for forty minutes.
Then west.
Then doubled back.
Emily fell asleep with her head on my lap.
Finally, Ruiz turned onto a gravel road leading to a small farmhouse.
"Whose place is this?"
"My sister's."
"Does she know why we're here?"
"She knows enough."
The house was empty.
Ruiz's sister was traveling.
For the first time that day, there were no cameras in the hallway.
No strangers at the desk.
No room number for someone to leak.
Ruiz checked every window and door herself.
Then she placed three phones on the kitchen table.
"One for me, one for Hale, one for emergencies."
"What about mine?"
"Off."
"You think it's compromised?"
"I think everything connected to your normal life is compromised until proven otherwise."
Hale poured coffee.
He was broad-shouldered, gray at the temples, and had the tired eyes of someone who had spent too many years learning what people were capable of.
"We have a bigger issue," he said.
Ruiz looked at him.
"Tell him."
Hale turned to me.
"Jason's attorney got him released pending formal charges."
I stood so quickly the chair tipped backward.
"What?"
"Emergency hearing."
"He locked my daughter outside for two days."
"The defense argued there was no direct evidence he put her there."
"She said he did."
"She's ten."
"That makes her less credible?"
"It shouldn't."
Hale looked disgusted.
"But Pike attacked the lack of physical evidence and claimed the enclosure was used for a large dog."
"The padlock?"
"He claims Jason locked it after Emily climbed inside voluntarily."
I stared at him.
"That's insane."
"Yes."
"And a judge accepted that?"
"The judge set strict conditions and a bond."
"Which judge?"
Ruiz answered.
"Harlan Whitmore."
Hale glanced at her.
Something passed between them.
"What?"
Ruiz looked at me.
"Judge Whitmore's name appears in one of the financial documents recovered from the pool."
The room went silent.
"You're kidding."
"No."
"So the judge who released Jason is named in the evidence Jason tried to destroy?"
"Yes."
"And nobody stopped the hearing?"
"The documents haven't been fully authenticated."
"Do you believe in coincidences?"
Ruiz looked exhausted.
"Less every hour."
Emily woke from the sound of my voice.
"Is Jason out?"
No one answered quickly enough.
She knew.
Her face crumpled.
"He'll find us."
I knelt beside her.
"No."
"He found the hotel."
"We're not at the hotel now."
"He always finds things."
Ruiz crouched on the other side.
"Emily, listen to me."
Emily looked at her.
"Jason doesn't know where this house is."
"How do you know?"
Ruiz paused.
"Because I didn't tell anyone."
Emily considered that.
Then she nodded.
Later, after she fell asleep in the guest room, Hale opened his laptop.
"We got partial recovery from the laptop in the pool."
I moved closer.
"What was on it?"
"Financial spreadsheets."
"Whose?"
"A company called Meridian Civic Solutions."
"Never heard of it."
"Neither had we."
"What do they do?"
"Consulting contracts."
"For who?"
Hale turned the screen toward me.
A list of municipal departments filled the page.
Public works.
Property seizures.
Evidence storage.
Court administration.
"They're connected to the city?"
"They've received millions in contracts over six years."
"Who owns them?"
"Shell companies."
"And Jason?"
Hale clicked another file.
"Jason received payments from one of those shells."
"For what?"
"No description."
"How much?"
"Over eight hundred thousand dollars."
I sat back.
Jason worked in commercial insurance.
At least that was what he told everyone.
Eight hundred thousand dollars did not fit.
Ruiz placed a second document beside the laptop.
"Sarah appears to have found the payments."
"How?"
"She worked in accounting before Emily was born."
I nodded.
Sarah could spot an inconsistency in a bank statement from across a room.
"She followed the money."
"Looks that way."
"To Judge Whitmore?"
"Possibly."
"And Reed?"
"Possibly."
"And who else?"
Hale scrolled.
A list of initials appeared.
Some had dollar amounts beside them.
Some had dates.
One had a full name.
M. HALE.
I looked at the detective sitting across from me.
He stopped breathing.
Ruiz's hand moved slowly toward her holster.
Hale stared at the screen.
"That's not me."
Nobody spoke.
"Elena."
Ruiz did not look away from him.
"Step back from the table."
"You've known me twelve years."
"Step back."
Hale stood and moved away.
"I have never taken money from Jason or Meridian."
Ruiz's face was stone.
"Then help me prove it."
"Check the dates."
"I will."
"Check everything."
"I said I will."
I looked from one detective to the other.
The safe house suddenly did not feel safe.
Then the emergency phone on the table rang.
All three of us stared at it.
Only Ruiz, Hale, and I knew that number existed.
Ruiz answered without taking her eyes off Hale.
"Ruiz."
A woman's voice came through the speaker.
Weak.
Breathless.
"It's Sarah."
I lunged toward the phone.
"Sarah, where are you?"
She ignored the question.
"David, you need to leave that house."
My blood froze.
Ruiz looked toward the dark windows.
"How do you know where we are?"
Sarah started crying.
"Because that's where they took me first."
May you like
Then every light in the farmhouse went out.
