Chapter 2 - The Wheel That Lied
The mansion went into lockdown in under ninety seconds.
Steel shutters descended over several exterior access points. Guards appeared from corridors Elise hadn't even known existed. Phones rang. Doors locked.
Elise stood beside Martha near the main staircase while security personnel searched the property.
She should have felt safer.
She didn't.
A fortress was only useful when the enemy was outside.
Caleb had transferred into his backup wheelchair, a slimmer black model stored in his private office.
The sabotaged chair sat beneath bright portable lights while Jonah and a technician examined it.
Elise watched from the doorway.
The technician removed the front caster assembly.
“Retaining bolt was backed out approximately four turns.”
Jonah asked, “Could vibration have done it?”
“Not like this.”
Caleb sat motionless.
“How long until failure?”
“Impossible to say. Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe two hours.”
“Could it fail crossing the entrance?”
“Yes.”
Caleb's gaze moved to Elise.
She wished he would stop doing that.
Every time something confirmed her suspicions, he studied her like she was another piece of evidence.
Jonah walked toward her.
“You said you worked hotels.”
“Seven years.”
“Maintenance?”
“Housekeeping.”
“You expect me to believe hotel housekeeping taught you mechanical inspection?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know?”
Elise looked at him.
“I didn't know the bolt was loose.”
“You told him not to move.”
“Because the wheel dragged.”
Jonah folded his arms.
“A lot of people wouldn't notice that.”
“A lot of people don't spend eight hours a day staring at floors.”
Caleb spoke from behind him.
“She has a point.”
Jonah wasn't amused.
Elise couldn't blame him.
A stranger had entered his employer's home.
Another stranger had altered the wheelchair.
And the only person who had noticed happened to be an employee who had been there three days.
She would suspect herself too.
“Search my room,” Elise said.
Jonah blinked.
“What?”
“Search it.”
Martha frowned. “Elise—”
“If you're wondering whether I'm involved, stop wondering.”
She looked directly at Jonah.
“My suitcase is under the bed. My phone is in the staff locker. You can check both.”
Jonah glanced at Caleb.
Caleb said, “Do it.”
Martha appeared offended on Elise's behalf.
Elise wasn't.
Suspicion was reasonable.
What frightened her was when powerful men stopped being reasonable.
Twenty minutes later Jonah returned.
“Nothing.”
“Obviously,” Martha muttered.
Elise's room contained three uniforms, two pairs of shoes, toiletries, a paperback novel and seven dollars in cash.
It also contained something Jonah hadn't mentioned.
An eviction notice.
Caleb eventually found out anyway.
He summoned Elise to the library after midnight.
The room smelled of leather and old wood.
He was alone.
That was almost worse than armed guards.
“Sit.”
“I'd rather stand.”
“You've been standing fourteen hours.”
“So?”
He gestured toward the chair opposite his desk.
Elise sat.
Caleb placed a folded document on the desk.
Her eviction notice.
She stared at it.
“You searched my room.”
“My security did.”
“You read that?”
“Yes.”
Heat rose into her face.
“You had no right.”
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“That doesn't make my life yours.”
For the first time, Caleb looked genuinely surprised.
Most people apparently did not speak to him that way.
Good.
Elise was too tired to be frightened properly.
“You owe six thousand eight hundred dollars,” he said.
“You've got excellent reading comprehension.”
“You accepted this job for a four-thousand-dollar bonus.”
“Yes.”
“It won't be enough.”
“I'll figure it out.”
“I could solve it tonight.”
She immediately understood.
“No.”
“I didn't tell you what I was offering.”
“You don't have to.”
He leaned back.
“You saved my life.”
“Maybe.”
“You prevented me from crossing a floor designed to send my wheelchair into a staircase.”
“That doesn't mean you own my rent.”
His gaze hardened slightly.
“Most people would accept.”
“Then give it to most people.”
For several seconds he said nothing.
Elise stood.
“If that's all—”
“Why?”
She stopped.
“Why what?”
“Why refuse?”
“Because tomorrow you might decide saving me means I belong to you.”
Something shifted behind his eyes.
“And you think that's the kind of man I am?”
“I've known you three days.”
“That didn't answer me.”
“It answered perfectly.”
Caleb almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Jonah entered without knocking.
“We found the technician.”
“Alive?”
“No.”
Elise's stomach dropped.
Jonah continued.
“His van was found near the river. Harris is dead.”
Caleb's expression became stone.
“When?”
“Preliminary estimate says before he supposedly arrived here.”
Elise understood first.
“The man who serviced the chair wasn't Harris.”
Jonah nodded.
“He used his identification.”
Caleb asked, “Cameras?”
“Face obscured. Hat, glasses, beard.”
“Vehicle?”
“Cloned plate.”
“Who authorized him through?”
Jonah hesitated.
“That gets worse.”
Caleb's voice went flat.
“How?”
“The electronic approval came from your account.”
Elise looked at Caleb.
He didn't react.
Jonah placed the tablet before him.
“There was a valid authorization token.”
“Someone stole it.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“Or somebody with access generated it.”
Caleb's private office.
His staff.
His security.
His house.
Someone had not simply walked inside.
They had been invited.
Caleb looked toward Elise.
“Go back to your room.”
“No.”
His eyebrow rose.
“No?”
“You just told me someone used your private authorization to admit a fake technician.”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to walk alone through this house?”
That stopped him.
Jonah almost smiled.
Caleb touched the call button beside his desk.
“Martha will escort you.”
“She's sixty-two.”
“Sixty.”
From the doorway came Martha's annoyed voice.
“And I can still knock both of you unconscious with a mop if necessary.”
Elise laughed despite herself.
Caleb did too.
Barely.
It was the first time she saw what his face looked like without anger.
It made him more dangerous in an entirely different way.
Martha escorted her toward the staff wing.
Halfway there, Elise stopped.
“What is it?” Martha whispered.
Elise stared at a security camera above the corridor.
Yesterday it pointed toward the service elevator.
Tonight it pointed six inches left.
Toward a painting.
“Martha.”
“Yes?”
“Who adjusts those cameras?”
“Security.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Elise looked at the painting.
It was a massive oil portrait of Caleb's grandfather.
Its frame sat crooked.
Barely.
Almost invisible.
Her hotel instincts screamed.
She approached.
“Don't,” Martha whispered.
Elise examined the frame without touching it.
One side protruded from the wall.
Behind it she could see a thin black cable.
“Martha, call Jonah.”
Martha reached for her phone.
Elise stared.
The camera had not been moved accidentally.
It had been redirected so it wouldn't record what was behind that painting.
Jonah arrived with two guards.
They removed the portrait.
Behind it was a narrow service panel.
The lock had been forced.
Inside were wiring conduits for the mansion's security system.
One cable had been cut and rerouted through a small unauthorized device.
Jonah stared at it.
“Network bridge.”
“What does that mean?” Elise asked.
“Someone created physical access to the security network.”
Caleb arrived moments later.
When Jonah explained, his expression became colder than Elise had ever seen.
“Who knows about this panel?”
“Martha?”
She shook her head.
“I've managed this house sixteen years. I didn't.”
Jonah looked at Caleb.
“Then someone had architectural plans.”
Caleb stared at the open wall.
“Or someone who helped build the system.”
Elise looked at the floor beneath the panel.
Dust had gathered along the molding.
Except for one rectangular spot.
Something had recently been placed there.
She crouched.
“What now?” Jonah asked.
Elise pointed.
“Someone stood equipment here.”
“How do you know?”
“The dust.”
There was also something else.
A tiny blue fiber caught against the baseboard.
Elise lifted it with tweezers from Martha's cleaning cart.
Jonah frowned.
“Uniform?”
Elise looked at Martha.
Housekeeping uniforms were gray.
Security wore black.
Maintenance wore blue.
Martha's face changed.
“Maintenance uniforms haven't been blue in two years.”
“Who wore them before?”
Martha answered quietly.
“Private contractors.”
Caleb asked, “Which contractor?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“The renovation company.”
“What renovation?”
“The west wing. After your accident.”
Silence.
Caleb's fingers tightened around the armrest of his wheelchair.
Elise noticed.
She knew almost nothing about the accident that had put him in the chair.
People in Bellgrave whispered that it involved a car bomb.
Others said betrayal.
Nobody seemed to know.
Caleb turned.
“Jonah.”
“Yes?”
“Pull every worker involved in that renovation.”
“I will.”
“And find out which ones are still alive.”
Elise's stomach tightened at the phrasing.
Caleb began moving away.
Then stopped.
He looked at her.
“You'll sleep in the east guest suite tonight.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Again?”
“I have a room.”
“Your staff room has one lock and an exterior-facing window.”
“So?”
“The east suite has reinforced doors.”
“Are you always this controlling?”
“When someone is trying to murder people under my roof? Yes.”
Elise opened her mouth.
Then an alarm sounded.
Not loud.
One short electronic tone from Jonah's phone.
His face changed.
“Motion detector.”
“Where?” Caleb demanded.
Jonah looked at the screen.
“Staff wing.”
Elise froze.
“My room?”
Jonah didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Security ran.
They reached Elise's room less than a minute later.
The door remained locked.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Jonah entered first.
Then stopped.
Elise looked past him.
Her mattress had been cut open.
Clothes lay scattered across the floor.
The eviction notice was pinned to the wall.
A kitchen knife had been driven through it.
Underneath, someone had written four words in black ink.
YOU SHOULD HAVE WALKED AWAY.
Elise stared.
Caleb's chair stopped beside her.
For once, there was no command in his voice.
Only quiet certainty.
“They know who you are now.”
Elise couldn't move.
Caleb looked toward Jonah.
“Find them.”
Then his eyes returned to Elise.
“And until we do, she doesn't leave my sight.”
Elise turned sharply.
“Excuse me?”
But somewhere beyond the window, hidden in the darkness outside Rowan House, a phone camera captured the two of them standing side by side.
Seconds later, that photograph was sent to an unknown number.
Along with a message.
THE HOUSEKEEPER MATTERS TO HIM.
May you like
And before morning, Caleb Rowan's enemy had decided exactly how to use her.
---
