Chương 2
Adrian forgot the guests.
He forgot the cameras.
He forgot the foundation announcement waiting on the teleprompter and the mayor’s deputy standing somewhere near the back of the room and the half-dozen donors whose photographs would appear in tomorrow’s society pages.
He looked only at the child.
“What did you say?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
It lasted less than a second.
Adrian saw it anyway.
He turned toward her.
She opened them again.
“Who is she?”
Victoria did not answer.
The child did.
“My name is Lily Hart.”
Adrian looked at her more carefully.
Recognition did not come like lightning. It arrived in fragments that his mind rejected as soon as they appeared.
The shape of her chin.
The way she held her shoulders when adults stared at her.
A small crease between her eyebrows when she believed someone had asked the wrong question.
Claire had done that.
Not at eight. Adrian had no clear memory of Claire at eight anymore. His memories had been overwritten by the last five years of arguments.
But at twelve, fourteen, nineteen.
That crease had always appeared before she told him he was missing the point.
“Where did you get that ribbon?”
Lily frowned.
“I just told you.”
“Where did you see Claire?”
The word changed her face.
Not much.
Enough.
Victoria stepped forward.
“Adrian.”
He ignored her.
“When?”
Lily’s hand curled around the ribbon.
Blackthorn rose beside her with slow care. His hoof slipped half an inch on the marble, and Lily steadied herself against his shoulder without trying to steady him.
Adrian noticed that too.
She knew horses.
Not vaguely.
Not from summer camp.
She knew where to stand.
One of the handlers moved forward.
Blackthorn pinned an ear.
“Stay back,” Lily said.
The handler stopped.
Adrian looked at the child.
“How do you know him?”
“Claire showed me.”
A murmur traveled through the ballroom.
Adrian turned.
Dozens of phones had appeared.
Of course they had.
He had invited reporters because he wanted coverage of the foundation.
He had hired photographers.
He had created the room in which his private life was now becoming public.
“Phones down,” he said.
Nobody moved quickly enough.
“Now.”
Security started through the crowd.
A man from the communications team hurried toward Adrian with panic already blooming across his face.
“Mr. Cole, we need to—”
“Clear the room.”
“Adrian,” Victoria said.
“Clear it.”
The communications director lowered his voice. “There are press here.”
“I know.”
“We can move you upstairs and—”
“I said clear the room.”
It took eleven minutes.
Adrian counted because counting kept him from asking Lily the same question fifty times.
Guests collected wraps and handbags. People whispered in the foyer. Someone had knocked over a champagne flute during Blackthorn’s escape, and a server crouched near the edge of the ballroom sweeping glittering fragments into a dustpan while security tried to move reporters toward the front doors.
The normality of the sweeping irritated Adrian beyond reason.
“Leave it.”
The server looked up.
“I can get someone later, sir.”
“I said leave it.”
She stood immediately.
He regretted the tone before she had taken three steps, but he did not apologize.
He looked toward Lily.
She was sitting on the marble with her legs folded, one hand resting on Blackthorn’s lowered muzzle.
Her bare feet were dirty.
Beside the service entrance stood a woman in catering blacks, perhaps thirty-five, pale with fear.
She had tried twice to reach Lily.
Security had stopped her twice.
On the third attempt, Lily called, “Mom.”
Adrian turned.
The woman looked at him.
Something in her face told him this night had not begun tonight.
“Let her through,” he said.
Security moved aside.
The woman crossed the floor quickly and dropped beside Lily.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did he step on you?”
“No.”
“Did you fall?”
“No.”
“Lily, I told you to stay in the staff lounge.”
“I did.”
“This is not the staff lounge.”
“I know.”
The woman shut her eyes briefly.
It was the exhausted reaction of a parent who had asked a question and received an answer too literal to be useful.
Adrian almost laughed.
Nothing about the moment was funny.
The sound came anyway, a single breath through his nose.
Victoria heard it.
She looked at him strangely.
The woman put Lily’s shoes beside her. Cheap cream flats with a broken strap.
“I was looking for tape,” Lily explained.
“You were supposed to wait.”
“I did for a while.”
The woman glanced at Adrian.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cole. She shouldn’t have been out here.”
“You’re June Hart.”
Her expression changed.
So did his.
He knew the name.
Not from tonight.
Eight years earlier, June Hart had worked three days a week in the laundry wing at the Cole estate. Later she moved to full-time housekeeping. Adrian remembered almost nothing about her except that she had once broken a nineteenth-century crystal decanter and came to his office to tell him before anyone discovered it.
He had deducted nothing from her pay.
At the time, he had considered that evidence that he was a decent employer.
June had disappeared from the staff shortly after Claire vanished.
“Where have you been?”
June’s jaw tightened.
“Working.”
“For who?”
“Mostly myself.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
Lily looked between them.
Victoria had come closer but remained several feet away.
Adrian turned to her.
“You know them.”
Victoria said nothing.
That was answer enough.
June rose.
“Lily, put your shoes on.”
“The strap broke.”
“Then carry them.”
“June.”
The woman faced Adrian.
He had spent most of his adult life in rooms where his name changed people’s posture. Bankers leaned in. Employees sat straighter. People who disliked him became temporarily civil.
June Hart looked tired.
Nothing more.
“When did Claire tie that ribbon?”
June placed a hand on Lily’s shoulder.
“I think this should happen somewhere private.”
“This is private now.”
“There are twelve employees pretending not to listen.”
Adrian looked around.
May you like
She was right.
He ordered everyone out except Blackthorn’s head groom, an older man named Mateo Ruiz, who remained near the doors with a lead rope hanging loose in one hand.
