Chapter 13 - THE KEY INSIDE THE WEDDING GIFT
Colin nearly fainted when I told him no one was to touch the gift table.
"Mr. Vance, half the gifts have already been moved."
"Moved where?"
"The bell staff started taking them to the presidential suite after the ceremony was delayed."
"Who ordered that?"
"The bride."
Of course she had.
"How many went upstairs?"
"Maybe twenty."
"And the rest?"
"Still in the ballroom."
Ruiz divided officers between both locations.
I took Toby with me to the ballroom because he was the only person who knew which gift he meant.
The room looked grotesquely normal.
A jazz trio had replaced the string quartet.
Guests stood in clusters eating miniature crab cakes and pretending not to stare at me.
The altar remained covered in white flowers.
Our unfinished vows still sat on cards beneath the officiant's book.
Evelyn was nowhere in sight.
Victor was gone too.
The gift table stood near the rear wall.
Toby walked beside me holding my index finger.
"Which one, buddy?"
He studied the boxes.
Then he frowned.
"Not here."
"Are you sure?"
He nodded.
"Big blue."
Colin checked his inventory photographs.
"There was a blue box."
"From whom?"
He zoomed in.
"No card visible."
"Where did it go?"
"Probably upstairs."
We moved to the presidential suite with Ruiz and two officers.
The door was open.
A bell cart stood inside.
Boxes covered the dining table and sofa.
Toby searched with the solemnity of someone looking for buried treasure.
"No."
"No."
"No."
Then he pointed.
"Blue."
A large navy box sat beneath two white bags.
I lifted it onto the table.
No card.
No ribbon.
The lid had been closed with clear tape.
Toby bounced once.
"That one."
Ruiz stopped my hand.
"I open it."
"It is a wedding gift."
"Today that sentence means nothing."
She photographed the box first.
Then she cut the tape.
Inside was a crystal decanter wrapped in tissue paper.
Toby looked confused.
"Where did you put the key?"
He reached toward the box.
Ruiz lifted the decanter.
Nothing beneath it.
Toby's face fell.
"I put it."
"I believe you," I said.
Ruiz examined the tissue.
There was a tear near one fold.
"Someone opened this before us."
My chest tightened.
"Maybe Toby removed the tissue."
He shook his head.
"No."
Ruiz checked the cardboard base.
A narrow slit had been cut into it.
Someone had searched the package and removed something small.
The key was gone.
Toby's lip trembled.
"Mommy said hide."
I knelt.
"You did exactly right."
"But gone."
"That is not your fault."
He looked close to tears.
I opened my arms.
He climbed into them.
"You helped us more than every adult in this hotel today."
He put his cheek against my shoulder.
Ruiz looked away politely.
Then one officer called from the bedroom.
"Detective."
We followed.
The officer stood near the nightstand on Evelyn's side of the bed.
A small black reader device had been plugged into the wall behind a lamp.
Wires ran toward the charging station where my phone had rested overnight.
Ruiz photographed it.
"Do not touch."
I stared.
"What is it?"
"Digital forensics can tell us."
I already knew what it meant in broad terms.
Someone had placed equipment beside my phone while I slept.
The officer opened the nightstand drawer.
Inside were three prescription bottles.
Two were mine.
One was not.
The label carried a name I did not recognize.
Ruiz bagged everything without discussing contents.
"Where is Evelyn?" I asked.
Colin called her.
No answer.
Her mother did not know.
Her bridesmaids did not know.
The officer assigned to observe her had lost sight of her during a surge of guests near the lobby.
I felt a cold anger settle into me.
"She ran."
Ruiz answered.
"Maybe."
"And Victor?"
"Also unaccounted for."
"That is not a coincidence."
"No."
My phone rang from an unknown number.
Ruiz signaled for me to answer on speaker.
"Thomas?"
Evelyn.
I looked at Ruiz.
She nodded.
"Where are you?"
Evelyn was crying.
"I had to leave."
"Why?"
"Because you turned the hotel into a police station."
"Where are you?"
"I am safe."
"With Victor?"
Silence.
"Thomas, listen to me."
"I am listening."
"Victor is dangerous."
Ruiz's eyebrows lifted.
"Interesting discovery," I said.
"I mean it."
"So do I."
"I should have told you."
"Told me what?"
She breathed shakily.
"He introduced us on purpose."
"I know."
Silence.
"Genevieve told you?"
"Caroline did."
I heard Evelyn gasp.
The reaction was genuine.
"What do you mean Caroline?"
"She left recordings."
Evelyn stopped crying.
For several seconds there was only faint background traffic.
"Thomas, those recordings are not what you think."
"You have not heard them."
"I know what Caroline believed."
"Because you knew her."
"Yes."
The lie was finally dead.
"Why did you tell me you never met her?"
"Because Victor told me if you knew, you would never speak to me."
"He was right."
"Please."
"Did you hit Genevieve today?"
Evelyn began crying again.
"She attacked me first."
"The video disagrees."
"The video does not show what she said."
"Words did not put your hand across her face."
"She threatened to ruin everything."
"So you hit her."
"I lost control."
"Then you lied."
"I was terrified."
"Of me?"
"Of Victor."
There it was.
Her first attempt to reposition herself from architect to victim.
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"You left the hotel at the same time."
"Because he called me."
"From where?"
"I don't know."
"What did he say?"
Evelyn lowered her voice.
"He said if I stayed, he would make sure you believed I planned everything."
"Did you?"
"No."
"You forged my signature?"
"No."
"You accessed my phone last night?"
"No."
"You gave Judith a false medical report?"
"I thought it was real."
I looked at Martin.
Even he seemed impressed by the density of lies.
"Who gave it to you?"
"Victor."
"Why would Victor have a report from my cardiologist?"
"He said you had asked him to help keep it private."
"And you believed him?"
"You have been forgetting things."
I almost admired her persistence.
"Name one."
"Appointments."
"Which appointments?"
"Dinner with the Wexlers."
"You changed the date and told me I forgot."
Silence.
I remembered now.
Evelyn had rescheduled a dinner, then acted concerned when I arrived on the wrong evening.
At the time I laughed at myself.
She had been manufacturing symptoms.
"What else?"
"Your keys."
"You moved them."
"Thomas."
"My reading glasses."
"Stop."
"The board packet I supposedly misplaced."
Her breathing changed.
"You cannot prove that."
"You just did."
She realized it.
Too late.
Ruiz wrote something on a notepad and slid it toward me.
KEEP HER TALKING.
I continued.
"Where is the brass key?"
Evelyn went silent.
"What key?"
"Wrong answer."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Someone opened the blue wedding gift and took it."
I heard a car horn in the background.
Then Evelyn whispered.
"Thomas, get out of the hotel."
"Why?"
"Just leave."
"Why?"
"Victor has the key."
"How do you know?"
"Because he told me."
"What does it open?"
"I don't know."
"Evelyn."
"I swear."
"Where is Victor?"
She breathed rapidly.
Then I heard a second voice, distant but unmistakable.
"Hang up."
Victor.
Evelyn whispered.
"I'm sorry."
The line went dead.
Ruiz was already tracing the call through department resources.
Martin looked at me.
"She is with him."
"Yes."
"Voluntarily?"
I looked at the silent phone.
"That is the first question today I genuinely cannot answer."
Toby tugged my jacket.
"Grandpa?"
"Yes?"
"Mommy said key has number."
I crouched.
"What number?"
He held up both hands, then folded several fingers down.
"Seven-three-one."
Linda gasped behind us.
"Locker 731."
"Where?"
Her face drained of color.
May you like
"Union Station."
