Chapter 149
Chapter 149:
“Take Mr. Zack to the vault. Log the deposit. Double-check the lock,” she said. “This is our top priority p>
“Right away,” Harvey said, already looking stretched to his limit.
It was a mistake — not in trusting Harvey, but in failing to recognize how thin he had been spread. A prickle of unease moved through her, but the gala preparations swallowed her attention before she could act on it.
Night fell. The hotel ballroom hummed with guests and candlelight.
Zack slipped down to the manager’s office. He pulled a key card from his pocket — one handed to him by a maid Aspen had bribed. He let himself in. Harvey wasn’t there; he had been called away to deal with a kitchen crisis, and in his rush, he had left the vault key on the desk beside the logbook he hadn’t had time to secure.
Zack opened the vault. He removed the black case, set it on the desk, and lifted out the Stradivarius with practiced hands. He wrapped it carefully in a towel, then placed a cheap wooden replica inside the case.
He took the replica out.
He swung it against the corner of the desk.
Crack. Splinter.
He dropped the pieces on the floor, pushed the real violin beneath the towels of a laundry cart parked in the hallway, and walked out into the lobby screaming.
𝗟a𝗍es𝘵 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝘱𝘁e𝘳𝘴 𝗈n
“Help! Theft! My violin p>
Jocelyn was in the ballroom when the screams reached her. She pushed through the gathering crowd and into the lobby. Phones were already raised. Guests formed a ring around the commotion.
Zack was on his knees, clutching the splintered neck of the fake violin, his face a performance of devastation.
“My Stradivarius! It’s destroyed! Someone stole it and smashed it!” He looked directly into the nearest camera. “This hotel is incompetent! It’s a deathtrap p>
Jocelyn reached him and looked at the office door. The lock appeared forced.
She turned to Harvey’s desk and looked at the security monitor. The screen was frozen — a static image of the empty hallway from ten minutes ago. A loop. Deliberately placed.
This was not a clumsy smash-and-grab. This was coordinated.
The police sirens were already audible outside. They had arrived too fast. Someone had placed the call before the crime had even been staged.
The realization landed on her like a stone: It’s a setup.
Her phone buzzed. An Instagram notification.
Aspen had posted: Hearing terrible rumors about Wolfe Hotel security. A Stradivarius destroyed? So sad. #WolfeFail.
Jocelyn stood in the center of the chaos, the flashing lights of arriving squad cars strobing through the lobby windows. Around her, the carefully constructed reputation of the Wolfe Hotel was crumbling in real time.
Zack was on his knees in the center of the lobby, his body heaving with theatrical sobs that bounced off the marble walls. He cradled the splintered neck of the violin in both hands, clutching the jagged wood as though it were something irreplaceable.