Chapter 5 - The Room Where Her Mother Fell.
Samuel moved before Charlotte could ask another question.
He opened a toolbox, removed a small ring of mechanical keys, and crossed to the hidden service panel.
"The safe cannot be opened from the suite without a biometric lock."
Charlotte followed him.
"Whose biometric lock?"
"Eleanor's."
"My mother is dead."
"Which is why Victor has spent eight months trying to bypass it."
Adrian pointed at the monitor.
"And tonight he brought thermite."
Samuel nodded.
"If he cannot open it, he will cut it out of the wall."
Charlotte hugged the blue ledger against her ribs.
"Then we stop him."
Samuel gave her a hard look.
"You are bruised, bleeding, and legally frozen out of your own company."
"I noticed."
"Victor has armed security."
"I noticed that too."
"This is not a board meeting."
Charlotte's eyes went to the screen where Vivienne stood inside her mother's bedroom.
"No."
Her voice became quieter.
"It is my mother's room."
Samuel understood he would not change her mind.
He led them through the maintenance passage to a narrow access door behind an antique mirror in Suite 4201.
The mirror was one of several architectural tricks Thomas Vale had installed during a renovation decades earlier.
Charlotte remembered playing hide-and-seek in the suite as a child.
She had never known the wall itself opened.
Voices came through the thin panel.
Victor was speaking.
"We have less than twenty minutes before the state attorney's office calls back."
Vivienne answered.
"You said the injunction would hold for forty-eight hours."
"It will hold if Charlotte does not produce the original trust ledger."
Charlotte looked at the blue book in her hands.
Samuel mouthed one word.
Good.
Victor continued.
"The certificate was not supposed to survive."
Vivienne laughed softly.
"Your clerk was careless."
"My clerk is missing."
"Then your problem is larger than mine."
Charlotte's anger burned cold.
Someone had stolen the certificate from her folder in the lobby, but Victor had expected it to be destroyed before she arrived.
That meant the theft in the lobby might not have been his work.
A third voice spoke from the suite.
"Mr. Dane, we found the panel."
Metal scraped against plaster.
Samuel unlocked the hidden mirror.
Charlotte grabbed his wrist.
"If we go in now, they take the ledger."
He looked at her.
"If we wait, they destroy the archive."
Charlotte looked around the service passage.
A red fire alarm box was mounted beside a sprinkler valve.
"Does this floor have a separate suppression system?"
Samuel followed her gaze.
Then he smiled for the first time.
"Your mother used to do that."
"Do what?"
"Ask the dangerous question after she already had the answer."
He opened the sprinkler cabinet and pulled a manual release.
An alarm exploded through the forty-second floor.
Inside Suite 4201, Victor shouted.
Seconds later, high-pressure sprinklers erupted from the ceiling.
Water hammered the room.
Vivienne screamed in fury.
Charlotte pushed the hidden mirror open.
Victor turned toward her through the downpour.
His face showed pure disbelief.
"You."
Charlotte stepped into the suite.
Water immediately soaked her hair and clothes.
She held the blue ledger behind her back.
"You were expecting someone else?"
Victor's two security officers moved toward her.
Samuel emerged behind her holding a heavy wrench.
Both guards stopped.
Victor stared at him.
For once, the lawyer had no prepared expression.
"Samuel."
Samuel's smile was humorless.
"You look disappointed."
Vivienne stood beside the bedroom wall, her black coat plastered to her white silk gown beneath it.
The silver thermite case lay open on the bed.
Her mascara had begun to run.
Charlotte thought she had never looked less glamorous.
"He is dead," Vivienne whispered.
Samuel shrugged.
"I have heard."
Victor recovered first.
"Charlotte, you have no idea what you are doing."
"That sentence is getting boring."
"Give me the ledger."
Charlotte did not ask how he knew she had it.
"No."
Victor looked toward the guards.
"Take it."
Neither man moved.
Samuel lifted the wrench slightly.
But it was not Samuel they were watching.
It was the smoke detector camera blinking red above the door.
Charlotte noticed.
"Are we live?"
Samuel nodded.
"Every feed is being copied off-site."
Victor's face tightened.
Charlotte stepped toward the safe.
A rectangular section of wall paneling had been removed, revealing a steel door with a black biometric pad.
"What is inside?"
Victor said nothing.
Vivienne did.
"Nothing that belongs to you."
Charlotte turned toward her.
"You dragged me across my own lobby this morning."
She glanced around the suite.
"I am starting to think your definition of ownership is flexible."
Vivienne's eyes filled with hatred.
"Your mother was weak."
Charlotte went very still.
"Say that again."
"She spent years pretending she could control men who built the real business beneath her name."
Samuel stepped forward.
"Careful, Vivienne."
She ignored him.
"Eleanor thought being born a Vale made her untouchable."
Charlotte looked at the balcony doors.
Rainwater from the sprinklers ran across the marble toward the place where her mother had fallen.
"Did you push her?"
The room became silent except for the alarm and water.
Vivienne smiled.
"Would you believe me if I said no?"
"Try me."
Victor cut in.
"Enough."
Charlotte faced him.
"You were here that night."
Victor's eyes hardened.
"So were dozens of employees."
"The police report says she was alone."
"Police reports are not sacred texts."
"Did you write this one?"
Victor moved toward Charlotte.
Samuel stepped between them.
Then the biometric safe made a soft electronic sound.
Everyone turned.
The black pad had lit by itself.
A green line moved across the screen.
ACCESS RECOGNIZED.
Charlotte stared at it.
"How?"
Samuel's expression changed from surprise to fear.
The safe door clicked open.
Inside lay a row of hard drives, sealed envelopes, and a small digital recorder.
On top of everything was a photograph of Charlotte as a child with Eleanor.
A handwritten note was taped to it.
FOR CHARLOTTE ONLY.
Charlotte reached toward the recorder.
Victor lunged.
Adrian slammed into him from the side.
The recorder fell to the wet carpet.
Vivienne grabbed it first.
She ran toward the balcony.
Charlotte chased her.
Vivienne reached the open doors and held the recorder over the railing forty-two floors above the city.
"One more step," she said, "and your mother's last words disappear."
Charlotte stopped.
Vivienne smiled through rain and sprinkler water.
Then a man's voice came from the recorder in her hand.
It had switched on when she grabbed it.
"Eleanor, sign the transfer."
Charlotte recognized Victor Dane's voice.
Then her mother's voice answered from eight months in the past.
May you like
"I would rather burn Solmere to the ground."
Vivienne's smile vanished.
