Beside it was an old, weather-beaten digital keypad.
“Arthur, what are you doing?” Martha asked as I stepped up to the panel. “You don’t work here. You don’t know the security code.”
“No,” I said, wiping the rain from the dirty buttons. “But I own the building.”
Martha stared at me in shock.
It was a secret I had kept for thirty-five years. When Oak & Anchor started generating significant donations, our board advised us to buy a grand headquarters. Instead, I quietly used a blind trust to purchase the Beaumont Hotel itself.
The charity never paid a dime in venue fees, and the hotel's massive commercial profits secretly funded our homeless shelters for three decades without anyone knowing. Richard thought he was renting a ballroom tonight. He didn't realize he was sitting in my house.
I typed in the original master override code I had programmed in 1991.
Click.
The heavy locking mechanism disengaged with a loud thud. I pulled the heavy service door open just enough for us to slip inside, into the warm, dimly lit subterranean bowels of the hotel.
We hurried down the concrete corridor, the rhythmic thumping of the gala’s bass heavy through the ceiling above us.
As we turned the corner toward the service elevators, I stopped dead in my tracks.
The hallway was lined with dozens of heavy cardboard boxes. I walked over to the nearest one and pulled back the folded flaps.
Inside were thousands of hand-drawn pictures. They were crayon drawings from the children who had lived in our shelters over the last forty years. Next to them were the original bound logbooks containing the names of every family we had ever helped.
A heavy, black garbage bag sat beside the box. Someone had spray-painted the word INCINERATOR across the side.
My heart shattered.
This wasn’t just a financial takeover. Richard was erasing our history. He was throwing the souls of the people we saved into a literal fire to make room for his wealthy friends.
Tears finally spilled over Martha’s cheeks. She reached into the box and gently pulled out a faded drawing of a house with a smiling stick figure standing outside.
“He’s destroying everything we built,” she sobbed quietly.
A sudden surge of pure, blinding anger washed over me, burning away the exhaustion and the fear. I wasn't going to let a greedy corporate parasite burn my life’s work.
“No, he isn't,” I said, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
I grabbed Martha’s hand and marched directly toward the massive freight elevator that led up to the ballroom kitchen.
Before my finger could press the call button, a heavy hand clamped down violently onto my shoulder, spinning me around.
It was Marcus, the massive guard from the front door.
He had a two-way radio clipped to his lapel, his breathing heavy, his eyes burning with malice.
“You old fool,” Marcus hissed, shoving me hard against the concrete wall. My head cracked against the cinderblock, my vision swimming for a terrible second.
“Leave him alone!” Martha screamed, hitting the guard’s massive arm.
Marcus casually pushed her away, unhooking a pair of heavy zip-ties from his belt.