Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO RAN BEFORE THE ALARM
Victor disappeared at 9:17 p.m.
The fake kitchen alarm had been scheduled for 9:20.
Three minutes before the murder plan was supposed to begin.
He left through the east corridor.
Exactly where Jack would have been sent.
Security footage showed Victor entering the narrow hallway.
But never coming out.
There was a blind service exit.
Which meant the manager who spent three months humiliating Lily had escaped before anyone could question him.
Or someone had removed him.
By midnight, Jack’s people and police had located Victor’s car in a parking garage.
Empty.
His phone remained inside.
On the passenger seat was a bloodstained napkin.
Lily received the news from a hotel room while Noah slept beside Ruth.
She couldn’t stop looking at the door.
Every sound felt wrong.
At 1:06 a.m., someone knocked.
Rocco stood outside.
“Mr. Moretti wants to speak with you.”
“He can call.”
“He’s here.”
Lily stared.
Jack Moretti waited at the far end of the hotel hall.
Alone.
At least visibly.
He had removed his jacket.
His shirt sleeves were rolled once at the forearms.
He looked less like the feared man from the Maragold Suite.
More tired.
“Why are you here?”
“To apologize.”
That was not what she expected.
“For what?”
“For telling you I didn’t trust you.”
“You don’t.”
“No.”
He didn’t soften the truth.
“But I should have said I had no reason yet to distrust you.”
Lily folded her arms.
“That sounds almost human.”
Something moved near his mouth.
Then vanished.
He held out an evidence photograph.
Victor’s abandoned car.
Blood on the napkin.
“Do you recognize the embroidery?”
A tiny gold M.
Maragold Room.
“Yes.”
“Victor took it from the restaurant.”
“Or someone put it there.”
Jack’s gaze sharpened.
“Exactly.”
He had come because she noticed details.
Because for the first time in years, someone important thought the thing she was good at mattered.
“What else?”
He handed her photographs from Victor’s office.
Employee records.
Schedules.
Copies of ID documents.
Her personnel file.
One page contained photographs.
Not restaurant photographs.
Surveillance.
Lily taking Noah to school.
Lily entering Ruth’s building.
Lily visiting a grocery store.
Lily standing outside a clinic.
Her skin crawled.
“How long?”
“Three months.”
Since the day she started.
“Why me?”
Jack studied her.
“We found transfers from Marco to Victor.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand dollars.”
“For spying on a waitress?”
“Apparently.”
Lily stared at the surveillance images.
Then something caught her eye.
One photograph showed her outside St. Catherine’s Orthopedic Clinic six weeks earlier.
She had never been there.
“That isn’t me.”
Jack looked closer.
The woman had Lily’s auburn hair.
Same coat.
Similar build.
But the bag was wrong.
Lily’s tote had a stitched blue patch Noah made.
This bag didn’t.
“Who is she?”
Jack’s expression changed.
“You tell me.”
Lily zoomed in.
The woman turned slightly.
Her face became visible.
Sarah.
Her friend.
The same Sarah who had once taken a mysterious high-paying household job and refused to explain it.
Lily stared at Jack.
“Sarah.”
“What about her?”
“She worked for someone like you two years ago.”
Jack’s face hardened.
“Where?”
“Charleston.”
He went still.
“Lily.”
“What?”
“Marco Voss owned a house outside Charleston.”
Her stomach dropped.
Sarah had not been protecting Lily from a strange job.
She had been hiding something connected to Marco.
Then Jack asked:
“When did Sarah disappear?”
May you like
Lily’s breathing stopped.
Because Sarah had not answered a single message in eleven months.
