Chapter 2 - The Empty Closet
Marcello led them upstairs with two security officers following several yards behind.
Camille walked beside him.
Elena and Lily followed more slowly.
“Which way?” Marcello asked.
Lily pointed left.
The second floor of the Grand Regency was quieter than the ballroom below. Thick carpeting swallowed their footsteps. Gold sconces illuminated a corridor of private event suites, coatrooms, and administrative offices.
Lily stopped beside a narrow service hallway.
“There.”
Camille crossed her arms.
“This is absurd.”
Marcello ignored her.
Lily moved to a gray door marked STAFF LINEN STORAGE.
“It was here.”
The door was locked.
Marcello looked toward security.
A guard used his master key.
Inside were stacks of folded tablecloths, banquet chair covers, spare uniforms, boxes of napkins and cleaning supplies.
No blue bag.
No fake belly.
Nothing remotely scandalous.
Camille exhaled.
“There. Are we finished humiliating me now?”
Marcello searched the small room with his eyes.
Lily stepped inside.
Elena grabbed her gently.
“No touching anything.”
The child pointed at a shelf.
“Blue bag was there.”
The shelf was empty except for a roll of plastic garment covers.
Camille shook her head.
“Marcello, please think about what you’re doing. A toddler wanders upstairs, sees a laundry bag or a pillow, and suddenly I’m on trial?”
“You said you came upstairs.”
“To fix my makeup.”
“Then why were you in a linen corridor?”
“I wasn’t.”
Lily looked at her.
“Yes.”
Camille’s jaw tightened.
Marcello noticed a faint beige smear along the shelf edge.
He touched it.
Powder.
Or foundation.
Security officer Ben Walker leaned closer.
“There’s something else.”
Near the baseboard lay a thin crescent of clear adhesive.
Marcello picked it up.
Camille laughed nervously.
“Double-sided fashion tape. At a black-tie event. Shocking.”
That explanation was possible.
Which made it dangerous.
Possible explanations were how lies survived.
Elena wanted to leave.
“Mr. DeLuca, Lily and I should go downstairs.”
Camille turned immediately.
“Yes. She should.”
Marcello looked at Camille.
The urgency in her agreement bothered him more than Lily’s story.
“Ben, check the hallway cameras.”
Camille’s face changed again.
Only slightly.
But Elena saw it.
Marcello did too.
Ben touched his radio.
“Security control, pull second-floor west corridor from seven to eight tonight.”
Static answered.
Then a voice.
“Copy.”
Marcello crouched beside Lily again.
“Did you see anyone else?”
Lily thought.
“Pink lady.”
“Anyone with her?”
Lily frowned.
“A man came.”
Camille stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Lily flinched.
Elena moved between them.
“Please don’t speak to my daughter like that.”
The room went silent.
Camille seemed startled that a server had challenged her.
Then her expression cooled.
“I wasn’t speaking to you.”
“You were speaking to my three-year-old.”
Marcello stood.
“Elena is right.”
It was the first time he had used her name.
She had never told it to him.
Her employee badge had.
Camille stared at Marcello.
“You’re taking their side?”
“There aren’t sides.”
“There obviously are.”
Ben’s radio crackled.
“Mr. DeLuca?”
He answered.
“What?”
“Camera W-12 is offline.”
Marcello frowned.
“Since when?”
A pause.
“Seven eighteen.”
“What about the stair landing?”
“Also offline. Same time.”
Marcello checked his watch.
It was 7:46.
“When did they come back?”
“They haven’t.”
Camille looked away.
Marcello caught it.
“Who can disable those cameras?”
Ben hesitated.
“Security administration. Facilities management. Senior executive access.”
“How many senior executive credentials?”
“Six.”
Marcello’s voice became quieter.
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“Camille’s?”
Another hesitation.
“Yes. Her event-chair credential has temporary executive clearance.”
Camille’s face hardened.
“Are you seriously implying I shut off security cameras so I could remove my own stomach?”
Elena felt Lily’s fingers tighten around hers.
Marcello turned to the guard.
“Pull access logs.”
Camille stepped toward him.
“You’re making a public spectacle out of me because a child said something ridiculous.”
“No,” Marcello replied. “I’m checking why two cameras failed during the exact half hour she says she saw something.”
“That proves nothing.”
“I know.”
His tone frightened her more than accusation would have.
“Which is why I’m going to find out what does.”
A third guard appeared at the doorway holding a clear plastic evidence bag.
“Sir, housekeeping found this in the service elevator.”
Inside was a torn strip of flesh-colored silicone adhesive.
Camille stared at it.
Lily pointed.
“That was on the tummy.”
Nobody spoke.
Camille’s eyes moved slowly from the evidence bag to Elena.
For the first time that night, she was no longer pretending the child was confused.
She was calculating how much the child knew.
And Elena suddenly understood something terrifying.
May you like
Whatever Lily had seen upstairs was not merely embarrassing.
Someone had already begun trying to erase it.
