Chapter 14 - THE DOOR SHE OPENED
Celeste called Brooks before she moved.
The hotel was six minutes away.
Brooks told her officers were responding and instructed her to stay out of the building.
Celeste agreed.
Then she got into Reed’s car with Ben.
She wasn’t going to charge through a door.
She also wasn’t going to sit across town wondering whether Vivian would get out.
At the hotel, the award reception continued in a smaller ballroom.
Music drifted into the lobby.
Waiters carried glasses past people checking their coats.
Upstairs, Julian had taken Vivian’s phone.
Security could see the corridor, but the suite door was closed.
Brooks met Celeste near a service elevator.
“We’re making contact.”
“Has he hurt her?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Celeste hated the honesty.
She needed it anyway.
Arthur emerged from the ballroom.
“What have you done now?”
Celeste turned.
For a second, she saw him exactly as she had when she was small.
Tall.
Certain.
The person who decided whether a room felt safe.
Then she saw the man he actually was.
“Julian has Vivian upstairs.”
Arthur’s expression flickered.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Brooks stepped forward.
“Mr. Warren, move back.”
“She exaggerates,” he said.
Celeste stared at him.
Even now.
Even with another daughter behind another closed door.
A hotel security officer approached Brooks.
Julian had agreed to speak through the room phone.
He wanted Arthur.
Arthur shook his head.
“I’m not getting dragged into this.”
Celeste felt something cold settle inside her.
“Your daughter is in there.”
His mouth tightened.
Brooks moved away to coordinate the call.
Celeste caught only fragments.
Julian demanding a car.
Vivian crying.
Then Julian’s voice rose loud enough to carry from the receiver.
“You told me to clean it up!”
Arthur lunged toward the phone.
“That’s enough.”
Two officers stopped him.
Upstairs, something crashed.
Celeste flinched.
The sound tore open another room in her memory.
Smoke.
A beam falling.
Mara’s hand.
Ben touched her arm.
“Here,” he said. “You’re here.”
She looked at him.
Nodded.
Then a radio crackled.
A door had opened inside the suite.
Vivian had locked herself in the bathroom.
Officers moved.
The next minute seemed to last an hour.
Shouting.
A heavy impact.
Then the radio again.
One detained.
One woman safe.
Celeste bent forward, hands on her knees.
When Vivian came down wrapped in a hotel blanket, she went straight to her.
Celeste let her hold on.
May you like
Over Vivian’s shoulder, she saw Brooks approach Arthur.
And this time, when someone told him to come with them, he couldn’t buy his way out of the room.
