Chapter 4 - The Badge That Opened the Wrong Door
Dominic listened to the dinner recording twice.
When it ended, he stood at the windows overlooking the river, motionless except for the tightening of his hand around a glass of water.
“Derek knew where we were trapped,” Chloe said.
“Yes.”
“You never released that information publicly.”
“No.”
Luca entered with a folder recovered from archived hotel security records.
The shooters had entered the Starlight Gala through a loading dock using cloned staff credentials. One badge belonged to Chloe.
“I had mine around my neck all night,” she said.
“The system registered two identical badges,” Luca explained. “One entered through the ballroom at six twelve. The other entered through the service dock at eight forty-seven.”
Chloe thought back to the week before the gala.
Derek had visited her office to collect the last of his belongings. He spent twenty minutes alone near her desk while she met with a florist.
Her backup event badge had disappeared that afternoon.
She assumed she had misplaced it.
“He took it.”
Dominic opened another file.
“Mitchell Development was in financial trouble last year. Derek borrowed money from Vincent Caruso.”
Chloe knew the name. Every Chicago newspaper had described Caruso as Dominic’s rival after the gala attack.
“What did Caruso want?”
“Access to the hotel and my private schedule.”
The answer changed the shape of her entire breakup.
Derek had not left because she was suffocating him.
He left two weeks before the attack so that if her credentials were traced, he could claim they had separated and he no longer had access.
Britney had not been the reason he left.
She had been part of his alibi.
Chloe pressed both hands against the edge of the table.
“He planned the breakup.”
“He may have planned it for months,” Luca said.
Her memories began rearranging themselves.
Derek insisting on helping with gala logistics.
Derek asking which guests had private security.
Derek complaining that Chloe spent more time with floor plans than with him.
The sticky note on the kitchen island.
I need space. You’re suffocating me.
It had not been cowardice.
It had been evidence management.
Dominic moved toward her.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re pale.”
“I spent six years with a man who used me to help people murder you.”
Dominic’s voice softened. “He failed.”
“People were injured.”
“And you saved three employees by directing them through the catering corridor before the lights went out.”
She stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“I know everything that happened that night.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
Then Luca placed another document on the table.
It was a consulting agreement between Mitchell Development and Bennett Commercial Flooring—her father’s company.
The agreement had been signed three months before the gala.
It gave Derek access to architectural plans, contractor entrances, and temporary security layouts for the hotel.
Chloe recognized the second signature.
Her father’s.
Richard Bennett had not merely defended Derek after the breakup.
May you like
He had helped provide the information used in the attack.
The question was whether he understood what Derek intended to do with it.
