Chapter 9 - The Side Door —
We changed hotels that night.
Andrea notified the detective assigned to the threats. Mom insisted the front desk preserve its camera footage.
For once, nobody told her she was overreacting.
The next morning, Andrea’s office was full of people who spoke quietly and wrote everything down.
A detective named Maya Ruiz asked me about the envelope.
“What did the clerk say the man looked like?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“That’s okay.”
“I should’ve.”
“No,” she said. “You’re twelve. This isn’t your investigation.”
I looked at her.
Nobody had said that to me before.
Not in a way that sounded like permission.
Later, while Mom and Andrea spoke in the conference room, I sat near reception with a vending machine hot chocolate.
A man in a delivery jacket came through the side entrance.
He carried flowers.
“Emily Carter?”
I looked up.
“Your aunt’s downstairs. She needs you to come help with the baby.”
My cup stopped halfway to my mouth.
“What?”
“Elevator’s acting up. She’s by the side door.”
He smiled like adults smiled when they expected children to obey.
For half a second, I stood.
Then I remembered.
Lisa always called Noah “the little boss.”
And she would never send someone I didn’t know.
“What’s my aunt’s name?” I asked.
The man’s smile tightened.
“Come on. She’s waiting.”
The receptionist looked up.
“Sir, who signed you in?”
He reached toward my elbow.
I stepped backward and knocked over my hot chocolate.
“No.”
My voice came out loud.
Everyone turned.
The man swore and headed for the side door.
The receptionist hit a button beneath her desk.
Mom burst out of the conference room.
The building guard intercepted him in the hallway. He shoved past the guard but ran straight into Ruiz, who had been waiting for an elevator.
There was shouting.
A hard thump against the wall.
Then handcuffs.
Mom held me so tightly I couldn’t see.
“I’m okay,” I kept saying.
But I wasn’t.
My knees wouldn’t stop shaking.
Ruiz returned a few minutes later.
“The flowers were real,” she told Andrea. “The delivery wasn’t.”
“Who is he?”
“We’re confirming that.”
Her phone buzzed.
She looked at the screen.
Then at Mom.
“He had a photograph of Emily on his phone.”
Mom’s arms tightened.
May you like
Ruiz’s face stayed calm.
“It was taken outside your first hotel.”
