Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WEARING SADI'S NAME
“Who printed that badge?”
Sadi's question hung in the narrow security office.
Margot Ren stared at the enlarged photograph.
“I don't know.”
Sadi looked at her.
“Please don't do that.”
Margot blinked.
“Do what?”
“Tell me something you expect me to believe just because you're my boss.”
The room went silent.
Sadi had never spoken to Margot that way in nine years.
She would once have apologized immediately.
This time she didn't.
Marcelo watched without interrupting.
Margot lowered the tablet.
“Replacement badges can be made by management and security administration.”
“Was one made for me?”
Margot glanced toward Victor.
Sadi saw it.
So did Marcelo.
“Answer her,” he said.
Margot took a long breath.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was told the hotel was conducting an undercover security assessment.”
Elias frowned.
“Who authorized it?”
“Victor Salerno.”
Victor's face tightened.
“That was a routine safety procedure.”
“A routine procedure involving a woman wearing another employee's identity?” Marcelo asked.
Victor spread his hands.
“Ask Margot. She handled the staffing.”
Margot looked as though she had been struck.
“You told me it was approved.”
“I told you the hotel required additional security.”
Sadi listened as the two argued.
Then she raised one hand.
“Who was the woman?”
Margot hesitated.
“A temporary worker named Dina Webb. She was brought in through a contracting agency.”
“Was she told to wear my name?”
“I didn't know she'd be assigned your badge until this morning.”
“Who instructed her?”
Margot looked down.
“Boyd Gable.”
Sadi felt something inside her turn cold.
Her husband hadn't merely known about the attack.
He had used her name to prepare it.
Detective Lena Moreno arrived while Margot was explaining.
She was a Pittsburgh detective in her late forties, with patient eyes and a manner that suggested she had heard thousands of lies.
After reviewing the available evidence, Moreno arranged for Dina Webb to be located.
Dina was found at a nearby bus station.
She was frightened, twenty-three years old, and carrying a small envelope containing two hundred dollars.
She told the detective she had been hired to transport folded linens as part of a supposed hotel security drill.
A man identifying himself as Boyd Gable had given her Sadi's badge.
“He said nobody would recognize me because the housekeeping staff all dressed alike,” Dina explained.
Sadi looked away.
She had spent years believing that being unnoticed kept her safe.
Someone had turned that invisibility against her.
Dina insisted she knew nothing about the gun.
When Moreno asked who had paid her, she produced a receipt.
The company name was Mercer Site Services.
Elias recognized it.
“That firm supplies temporary workers to several Vieieri warehouses.”
Marcelo looked at Victor.
“Your division approves those contracts.”
Victor's voice hardened.
“Along with hundreds of others.”
He was right.
That made the situation worse.
There were too many ordinary explanations.
Too many legitimate relationships.
Too many places for betrayal to hide.
Moreno ordered the badge records and contractor invoices preserved.
Victor demanded an attorney and stopped answering questions.
Sadi didn't blame him for protecting himself.
She was beginning to understand that truth needed more than suspicion.
By late afternoon, Milton had been taken to the hospital for observation.
The fake waiter remained in police custody.
Boyd was being questioned separately.
And Margot had quietly withdrawn Sadi's termination notice.
But Sadi couldn't stop thinking about something.
Victor had said he loved Tomas Vieieri.
He had spoken about the dead man as though invoking a sacred memory.
Yet when Milton first accused him, Victor hadn't looked surprised.
He had looked annoyed.
As though an old problem had returned.
Sadi found Ruth Alvarez, the hotel's longtime banquet captain, in the employee break room.
“Ruth, do you remember Tomas Vieieri?”
Ruth's expression softened.
“Of course. He treated the kitchen staff better than most of the people who owned the place.”
“Did he ever come here with Victor?”
“All the time.”
Ruth opened a drawer and removed an old photograph album.
“Look.”
The photograph showed a hotel staff appreciation dinner.
A handwritten date appeared on the back.
October 14, 2017.
Tomas Vieieri stood near the center, smiling beside Victor Salerno.
Behind them were several warehouse employees.
Sadi studied the faces.
Then she stopped breathing.
A younger Boyd Gable stood near the edge of the photograph.
His arm rested casually across Victor's shoulder.
They looked like old friends.
Boyd had always told Sadi he had never met Victor Salerno.
She turned the photograph over.
Beneath the date, someone had written:
Last gathering before the riverfront fire.
Sadi looked at Ruth.
“My husband told me he was out of state that entire week.”
Ruth studied Boyd's face.
“Sweetheart, he wasn't.”
She tapped another face in the photograph.
“That's your husband standing beside Tomas Vieieri.”
May you like
Then she added quietly:
“And three nights after this picture was taken, Tomas was dead.”
