Chapter 2 - The Forbidden Door
Down on the third floor, Maria finished wiping down the mahogany conference table, her hands moving on autopilot while her mind raced back to Lily. She checked her watch. 9:14 AM. Nineteen minutes gone. Twenty-six minutes left.
Suddenly, a sharp chime echoed through the service hallway.
Maria froze. That wasn't the regular elevator chime; that was the distinct, low-frequency tone reserved exclusively for the high-speed private express car—the one that went straight from the underground VIP parking garage to the forty-first-floor executive penthouse, bypassing every intermediate floor entirely.
Except when it malfunctioned, Maria remembered with a jolt of pure terror.
Last month, a software glitch had caused the express elevator to randomly stop on odd-numbered floors during diagnostic testing. If the elevator had malfunctioned, could it have opened on the service level? And more importantly—did Lily stay put?
An icy premonition gripped Maria’s chest. She dropped her cleaning rag into the bucket, abandoned her cart right where it stood, and sprinted down the hallway toward the supply room.
She pushed open the heavy metal door.
Empty.
The storage bench was vacant. The coloring book lay face down on the floor, its red and blue crayons scattered like discarded matchsticks. Mr. Buttons sat propped against a spare mop bucket, his button eyes seeming to stare accusingly into the empty space.
“Lily?” Maria whispered, her voice cracking.
Silence answered her, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the building's industrial ventilation system.
Maria bolted out into the hallway, her eyes darting left and right. There was no sign of a three-year-old child in pink sneakers. She ran to the service staircase, pushing open the heavy fire door. The concrete steps stretched endlessly upward and downward.
Panic, hot and blinding, threatened to tear her apart. She whipped out her phone and dialed Calvin at the security desk.
“Calvin!” she cried the moment he answered. “Lily is gone! She left the supply room!”
On the other end of the line, Calvin’s voice turned instantly pale. “Maria, calm down. What do you mean she’s gone? Did she go toward the lobby?”
“I don't know! I checked the hallway, she’s not there. Calvin, check the cameras! Please, check the cameras right now!”
“I’m pulling up the feed,” Calvin muttered, keyboard clicking furiously in the background. “Hold on... looking at the service corridor... nothing... looking at the ground floor elevators... wait. Maria...”
“What? What is it? Did you see her?”
“Maria... she didn't go down. The camera on the private express landing... it caught motion about three minutes ago. The express car doors opened because maintenance was running an automated diagnostic sweep. The car was empty, but the doors stayed open for twenty seconds.”
Maria’s breath hitched. “Are you saying...?”
“Maria, she wandered into the express car. And the system... the system just automatically routed it back to its default home station.”
May you like
“Which is where?” Maria whispered, already knowing the terrifying answer.
“The penthouse,” Calvin breathed. “The executive floor.”
