Lady Boss Takes on Vegas Bullies! novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Private Floor

We took the dock stairs two at a time, and the sergeant met us at the freight door with his hat in his fist.

"Kid saw them go up the service lift to forty," he said. "Two guards and the cousin."

"Forty is Finnegan's floor."

"They didn't stop at forty."

I looked at Reuben.

"The east wing," I said. "There's a stair from forty that comes out beside the pantry."

The sergeant sent us up the freight lift to forty, and we took the last flight in the dark.

The fire door at the top stood propped open with a folded cocktail napkin.

I knew that napkin trick.

Dot had taught it to me when I was ten, for sneaking cocoa.

Beyond it lay the owner's corridor, long and carpeted and lit low.

One of Leigh's private guards sat against the wall holding his shin, with a very angry face.

Dot sat in a wing chair across from him, with a radio in her lap and her left shoe in her right hand.

"There you are," she said. "I was about to hit him again."

"Dot!"

I dropped to my knees in front of her and grabbed both her hands.

She was gray in the face and shaking, but whole.

"Don't fuss," she said. "They put me in Walter's study and sat me down with a paper. They wanted my name under a line that said Leigh is Veronica Ellington."

"And?"

"I told them what I'd do with the pen." She patted my cheek. "That study has a window seat with a latch only I know. I cleaned it nineteen years."

"Where's the cousin?"

"Down the stairs, screaming for his mother. I yelled fire." She frowned at the guard. "This one stayed to argue."

The guard muttered something.

Reuben lifted him by the collar with one hand, steered him to the stair door, and shut it behind him.

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