Chapter 4 - The Cedar Room
Cora woke up to the smell of burning cedar and hot tea.
For a long moment, she lay entirely still, her eyes fixed on a ceiling made of dark, exposed mahogany beams. The light in the room was soft and golden, cast by a small fire crackling in a stone fireplace across the floor.
She was lying on a massive bed with high-thread-count white linen sheets. Her uniform had been removed, replaced by a soft, oversized dark wool sweater that smelled faintly of sandalwood and cold air.
She moved her right foot—and a dull, heavy ache throbbed through her lower leg.
She looked down. Her ankle was heavily bandaged, bound tightly with a clean white splint that kept the joint completely immobile.
"You should move slowly," a voice said from the shadows near the hearth.
Soren Vance sat in a deep leather armchair beside the fire. He was wearing his trousers and a white dress shirt with the collar unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick, dark hair and several faint white scars along his wrists.
In his hand, he held a crystal glass filled two fingers deep with amber liquid.
Cora scrambled backward against the headboard, her hands instinctively flying to her chest.
"The paper..." she gasped, her voice hoarse. "Where is... where is my paper?"
Soren set his glass down on the small table beside his chair. He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulled out the folded, sweat-stained sheet of paper she had stolen from Suite 712, and laid it smoothly across his knee.
"It was under your shirt," Soren said softly. "My private doctor had to cut your tunic away to set your ankle."
Cora’s breath hitched in her throat. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for an exit, for her shoes, for anything she could use to defend herself.
"Please," she begged, her eyes brimming with tears. "Please... my daughter. She’s four. She’s alone at my apartment with Mrs. Gable... I have to go back to her..."
Soren stood up smoothly. He didn't rush. He walked across the soft rug toward the bed, carrying a warm mug in his right hand.
He set the mug on the nightstand beside her.
"Your daughter’s name is Ellie," Soren said quietly. "She is four years old. She has an asthma condition that requires a salbutamol inhaler twice daily."
Cora froze, her face draining of all color. "What... what did you do to her?"
"Leo," Soren called out toward the door.
The heavy door opened smoothly. Leo, Soren’s broad-shouldered head of security, stepped into the room. In his arms, wrapped in a plush woolen blanket and sound asleep, was a small four-year-old girl with dark curls. Clutched tight in her small hand was a worn cloth rabbit missing its left ear.
Cora let out a strangled sob, reaching her arms out across the duvet. "Ellie!"
Leo walked to the side of the bed, gently placing the sleeping child into Cora’s arms. Ellie stirred slightly, letting out a soft sigh, her face pressing into her mother’s neck before drifting back into a deep, safe sleep.
Cora hugged her daughter against her chest, burying her face in the child’s hair, her tears soaking into the soft woolen blanket.
"She was brought here twenty minutes ago," Soren said, stepping back to give them space. "My men paid Mrs. Gable double her rate for her time. Your apartment has been secured. No one knows she is here."
Cora looked up at him through her tears, her arms locked tightly around her child. "Why? Why are you doing this? You don't know me... you don't owe me anything..."
Soren reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded sheet of paper again.
He unfolded it slowly, holding it beneath the light of the bedside lamp.
"I didn't do it for you, Cora," Soren said, his low voice carrying a cold, jagged edge that made the fire in the hearth seem to flicker. "I did it because of what is printed on line twenty-four of this ledger."
He turned the paper toward her, his long, scarred finger pointing to the entry directly beneath Dahlia Thorne’s name.
Cora squinted through her tears at the line.
Subject: Vance, Arthur.
Date of Disposition: 04/14/2020.
Status: Liquidated — Asset Transfer Complete.
Authorized by: CADE, DESMOND.
Cora’s jaw dropped. "Arthur Vance... that was..."
"My father," Soren whispered, his gray eyes turning into two shards of cold, black ice. "For six years, I was told he died in a territorial dispute with the North Side gangs. For six years, I believed his killer was six feet under in an unmarked grave in the marshlands."
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He looked down at the tiny silver cufflink sitting on the nightstand beside her tea mug.
"My father was murdered in this hotel," Soren said softly. "By the man who currently manages its daily operations. And you just brought me his signature."
