# Chapter 6: The Maid’s Ledger
Smoke still clung to Evelyn’s clothes in her nightmares.
She woke up in the penthouse suite two days later.
The bed was massive and empty.
She sat up, holding her stomach.
The baby fluttered softly, a reassuring movement.
Adrian walked into the bedroom holding a silver tray.
There was tea and toast on it.
“The doctors said you need to eat,” he said.
He set the tray on the nightstand.
“My apartment,” Evelyn whispered.
“Is it really gone?”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“The fire marshal said it was a gas leak.”
He sat on the edge of the bed.
“But my security team found traces of an accelerant near the fire escape.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“The shoebox is gone,” she said.
“Everything my mother left me is ashes.”
Adrian reached into his jacket pocket.
“Not everything,” he said.
He pulled out a small, leather-bound book.
The edges were singed.
The cover was blackened with soot.
Evelyn gasped.
“How did you get that?” she asked.
“Tessa,” Adrian replied.
“Your friend from the banquet hall.”
He handed the book to Evelyn.
“She stopped by your apartment to drop off your spare keys before the fire started.”
“She saw the book on the counter and thought you might need it for work.”
Evelyn traced the burnt edges of the ledger.
She opened it carefully.
The pages were filled with her mother’s neat handwriting.
It was not a diary.
It was a logbook.
Dates, times, room numbers, and names were meticulously recorded.
“Look at the date on the first page,” Adrian said quietly.
Evelyn turned to the front.
October 14th, 2014.
“That is the night my mother died,” Adrian said.
Evelyn scanned the page.
There was a single entry circled in red ink.
Room 412.
Charles Vale.
Guest: Unregistered.
May you like
And beneath it, a terrifying note written in frantic haste.
“I saw what he put in the glass.”
