The elevator descends.
The voices fill the small space with perfect clarity.
Claire's. Clayton's. The room number. The instruction to get her face on camera. All of it, preserved in the ambient noise of a hotel corridor.
With each passing second, Claire and Clayton's faces lose more color.
Elias waits until it finishes. Then he locks the screen and turns the phone between his fingers, unhurried.
"All that planning," he says. "How does it feel?"
Neither of them answers.
Mia reaches over and takes her phone back. "Exactly." She tucks it into her bag. "Nothing to say. Funny how that works."
"Mia—"
"You started it." She gives Claire a look that is perfectly level despite everything. Then she drifts, with great dignity, to the side of the elevator and leans against the wall.
Elias cov
