Chapter 17 - The Person Behind the Door
The protection team sealed the floor.
No one had entered Lena’s room in the last hour.
That meant the photograph had been taken by someone already inside.
Marcus searched the suite room by room.
Closets.
Bathroom.
Ceiling access.
Nothing.
Then Lena pointed at the television.
“There’s a little light.”
A tiny black dot sat inside the speaker grille.
Camera.
Someone had planted it before we checked in.
Hotel records showed the room had been serviced by an outside contractor three hours before our arrival.
The contractor’s employee ID belonged to a woman named Teresa Bell.
Nora Bell’s sister.
Police found Teresa’s van in the parking garage.
Empty.
Inside were tools, uniforms, camera equipment, and photographs of me, Rachel, Claire, and Lena.
There was also a handwritten list of payments.
The last payment had come from Evelyn Cole.
My mother.
I stared at the page.
“No.”
Mara said nothing.
I called Evelyn from the secured hospital room where police had placed her after the lodge incident.
She answered on the second ring.
“Ethan.”
“Did you pay Teresa Bell?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“For what?”
“To watch Lena.”
“After everything?”
“I needed to know she was safe.”
“You paid the sister of the woman who tried to drug her.”
“I didn’t know Nora would do that.”
“You don’t get to say you didn’t know anymore.”
She began crying.
Then she said, “Ethan, there’s something else.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course there was.
“Teresa wasn’t reporting only to me.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know his name. But he has been paying her since before Lena was born.”
Mara grabbed the payment sheet and turned it over.
On the back was a routing number.
She entered it into her laptop.
The account belonged to a private foundation.
Rachel leaned closer.
She recognized the name.
“No,” she whispered.
“What?”
She looked at me.
May you like
“The foundation belonged to my father.”
