Chương 10
Ava extended the pouch.
Madeline took it but did not invite her inside.
“Thank you.”
Ava nodded and turned toward the elevator.
“That’s it?” Madeline asked.
Ava stopped.
“You came across town to return earrings?”
“Nora was nearby.”
Nora looked at them from twenty feet away and displayed no reaction to being used as geography.
Madeline opened the pouch. Both earrings were inside.
“You could have mailed them.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to ask me something?”
Ava looked tired. The gala photographs had made her face appear flawless and remote. In the hallway light, Madeline could see faint shadows beneath her eyes.
“I wanted to see whether you were all right,” Ava said.
Madeline stared at her. “Why?”
“I have been asking myself that in the elevator.”
“And?”
“I don’t have an answer that makes me look sensible.”
Madeline folded her arms. “You think he used me.”
“I think Ethan tells the truth selectively when he is afraid of what the whole truth might cost.”
“That sounds practiced.”
“It took me years.”
The refrigerator clicked inside the apartment.
Madeline opened the door wider. “It does that every six minutes.”
Ava glanced past her. “The refrigerator?”
“Yes. I’ve timed it.”
“Have you called the landlord?”
“I submitted three requests. They say it’s normal.”
“It isn’t.”
“I know.”
They stood in awkward silence.
Then Madeline stepped aside.
Ava entered.
The apartment was clean except for legal papers covering the dining table. Two mugs sat in the sink. A row of framed fashion sketches leaned against one wall, waiting to be hung.
Madeline noticed Ava looking at them. “My sister draws.”
“They’re good.”
“She hates when people say that without specifying why.”
Ava studied the nearest sketch. “The hands are imperfect.”
Madeline looked at her.
“In a good way,” Ava added. “Most fashion drawings turn hands into decorative lines. These look like they could hold something.”
Madeline set the jewelry pouch on the table. “She would accept that.”
Ava remained standing.
“You can sit,” Madeline said.
“I should not stay.”
“You already crossed town for earrings.”
Ava sat.
Madeline filled the kettle. “Tea?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Anything.”
“That is not an answer people with kitchens like yours usually give.”
Ava looked toward her. “You have seen my kitchen?”
“Ethan sent photographs.”
The air changed.
Madeline winced. “That sounded worse than it was. He was showing me the countertops because he wanted something similar in his hotel suite renovation.”
“The hotel suite was temporary.”
“He was planning to buy a condo.”
Ava absorbed that.
Madeline turned back to the kettle. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for information.”
“I seem to have a lot of it.”
“You do.”
Madeline made tea and sat across from her.
For several seconds, neither touched the cups.
“Did you know about Redhaven?” Ava asked.
“My lawyer told me not to answer questions about the investigation.”
“You’re right.”
“But no. I knew Daniel owned a logistics company. I didn’t know Sterling hired it until I saw the spreadsheet.”
“What did Ethan say?”
“That the internal fleet was badly managed and nobody had the nerve to outsource enough work.”
“That may be partly true.”
Madeline blinked. “You’re not going to say everything he did was evil?”
“I don’t know everything he did.”
“That hasn’t stopped the internet.”
“The internet has lower evidentiary standards.”
Madeline wrapped both hands around her mug. “Did you really not tell him you were president?”
“I did not.”
“Why?”
Ava watched steam rise between them.
“At first, because the decision was not final. Then because he wanted his career separated from me. Later, because we had become people who discussed schedules instead of ourselves.”
“That is not a reason.”
“No. It is a sequence.”
Madeline looked down.
“Did he love you?” she asked.
Ava’s answer took time.
“Yes.”
Madeline’s mouth tightened. “That is not what I expected you to say.”
“He loved me. He also resented me. He admired the parts of me that did not threaten him and dismissed the parts that did.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Ava lifted her tea and found it too hot.
“I don’t know what remains after trust,” she said.
Madeline looked toward the bedroom where one empty hanger remained hooked over the door.
“He said you made him feel small.”
Ava set down the cup.
“That is possible.”
“You’re agreeing?”
“I have money he could not imagine. A family name that opened doors. Authority I concealed. When he succeeded, I questioned whether the success mattered to him for the right reasons.”
“Did it?”
“Sometimes no. Sometimes yes. I rarely gave him the dignity of not knowing.”
Madeline’s eyes narrowed. “You are making it difficult to hate you.”
“I did not come to be liked.”
“Why did you come?”
Ava looked at the earrings on the table.
“Because I saw you step away from him,” she said. “Everyone interpreted it as self-preservation. I remembered doing the same thing privately for years.”
Madeline’s expression changed.
The kettle clicked as it cooled.
“My firm may fire me,” she said. “Not because I intended to steal anything. Because I was careless enough to let a man use my work laptop.”
“Your lawyer will address intent and policy.”
“That sounded very presidential.”
“I am not good at comfort.”
“No.”
Ava accepted the criticism.
Madeline rubbed the rim of her mug. “He asked me to make the internal option look unreliable.”
“We saw the email.”
“I thought he meant the chart was misleading because costs were split across budgets.”
“That is plausible.”
“I need you to tell me whether I was stupid.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I cannot know what you knew then by looking at what we know now.”
Madeline’s eyes filled, though she blinked before tears formed.
“He lied so smoothly,” she said. “Not only about big things. He told me the watch was from Geneva.”
“I gave him the watch.”
“Why lie about that?”
May you like
Ava almost smiled, but there was nothing funny in the answer.
“Because unnecessary lies are often about identity, not concealment.”
