A security guard immediately moved toward her.
“Miss, you can’t be here.”
The girl ignored him.
Her eyes were fixed on Theo.
Cassandra lowered the microphone.
“Who are you?”
The girl took another step.
“My name is Maya Serrano.”
The atmosphere in the ballroom changed.
Several reporters recognized the name instantly.
Cassandra did too.
Her face became rigid.
“Serrano?”
“Rafael Serrano is my father.”
Whispers spread from table to table.
Cassandra’s sadness disappeared behind a colder expression.
“You need to leave.”
“Not before Theo hears me.”
Security reached for Maya’s arm.
Theo suddenly lifted his head.
That tiny movement was enough to stop Cassandra.
She saw the way her son was looking at the girl.
Not with confusion.
With recognition.
“Theo?” Cassandra whispered.
Maya’s eyes never left him.
“Hi, Theo.”
His fingers tightened at his sides.
Cassandra noticed.
“So you know my son?”
Maya gave a small, bitter smile.
“He knows me.”
“How?”
“Our fathers knew each other.”
“That is impossible.”
“No. It’s inconvenient.”
A ripple of nervous laughter moved through the crowd, but Cassandra did not smile.
“You have thirty seconds before security removes you.”
Maya reached into her coat.
Two guards immediately tensed.
“Hands where we can see them.”
“Relax.”
She pulled out a folded piece of paper.
It was covered in pencil lines.
She held it toward Theo.
His face changed.
Cassandra noticed immediately.
“What is that?”
Maya unfolded it.
It was a drawing.
A staircase.
A narrow hallway.
A square room.
A door marked only by a dark circle.
And in one corner, a figure with long hair standing beside what appeared to be a control panel.
Cassandra stared at it.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she looked at Theo.
“Where did you get that?”
Maya answered for him.
“He drew it.”
Cassandra’s eyes snapped back to her.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six months after the fire.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
Maya walked closer to the stage.
Security looked toward Cassandra for permission to stop her.
Cassandra did not give it.
“My father used to bring me to Wynn Tower on Saturdays,” Maya said. “He worked long shifts. Sometimes he couldn’t find a babysitter. I sat in the maintenance office doing homework.”
She looked toward Theo.
“Theo used to come downstairs because nobody bothered him there.”
Theo’s expression softened.
“We played chess,” Maya continued. “Badly.”
A few guests smiled.
“Theo cheated.”
Theo’s mouth moved.
Almost a smile.
Cassandra stared at him.
It was more emotion than he had shown all evening.
Maya held up the drawing.
“After the fire, I didn’t see him again. Then these started appearing.”
“These?”
“Drawings.”
“How?”
“They were mailed to my grandmother’s apartment.”
“By whom?”
“There was never a return address.”
Cassandra laughed once, without humor.
“So you’re claiming my son secretly sent messages to your family?”
“No.”
Maya looked toward a woman standing near the stage.
An older woman in a gray uniform.
The woman immediately lowered her eyes.
Cassandra recognized her.
“Mrs. Chen?”
The housekeeper went pale.
Maya spoke quietly.
“Mrs. Chen mailed them.”
Cassandra’s expression hardened.
“You took things from my son’s room?”
Mrs. Chen finally looked up.
“He asked me.”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
Cassandra stepped toward her.
“My son asked you?”
The housekeeper nodded.
“With notes.”
Cassandra turned to Theo.
“Theo, is that true?”
He said nothing.
Maya walked to the foot of the stage.
“He was talking, Mrs. Wynn.”
Cassandra looked at her.
“No, he wasn’t.”
“He wasn’t using his voice.”
Maya unfolded several more sheets of paper.
Different drawings.
Hallways.
Doors.
Security panels.
A woman’s face.
A hand holding a keycard.
A clock showing 11:47.
And again and again, the same symbol.
A black square with a white X through it.
“For months, I didn’t understand these,” Maya said. “Then my grandmother gave me the boxes the police returned after my father’s trial.”
Cassandra’s jaw tightened.
“I found his maintenance notebooks.”
Maya pulled a small notebook from her pocket.
“He used symbols because half the systems in Wynn Tower had internal codes.”
She pointed at the black square.
“This means manual isolation.”
A man near the front table leaned toward the person beside him.
Maya continued.
“It means a safety system wasn’t broken.”
She looked directly at Cassandra.
“It means someone intentionally disconnected it.”
Cassandra’s voice became sharp.
“Your father was convicted because he did exactly that.”
“No.”
“He admitted accessing the system.”
“He admitted performing maintenance on it four days earlier.”