Chương 3
D.R.
The reflex stopped.
“Library,” Richard said.
Madison looked at him.
The ballroom was part of the Halcyon Club, a private events property Richard’s company had restored years earlier. The library was across the corridor, behind double walnut doors.
“No staff,” Madison said.
Richard nodded.
“No family.”
Another nod.
“Elena decides whether you’re in there.”
That one hurt him.
Good, Madison thought.
Then immediately hated herself for thinking it.
She turned toward Elena.
Richard’s wife was still holding her dress closed.
“I want him there,” Elena said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Richard looked at her.
Elena met his eyes at last.
“I’m angry with you,” she said.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Richard looked as if he might answer.
He did not.
Claire began moving guests out through the far doors.
There were murmurs now, hundreds of them. Chairs scraped. Someone started crying louder near the back. Madison saw the officiant close his binder and tuck it under one arm with the careful expression of a man trying to look as though canceled weddings happened to him every weekend.
Maybe they did.
Daniel’s mother approached.
“Danny?”
Madison put up a hand.
The woman stopped.
Her name was Susan Reeves. She had been kind to Madison from the beginning, sometimes painfully kind, with birthday cards mailed two weeks early and freezer containers of lasagna delivered whenever Madison had a cold.
“Madison,” Susan said, “whatever this is, please don’t—”
“I can’t talk to you right now.”
Susan looked at the bracelet in Madison’s hand.
Her face drained.
Daniel saw that.
“Mom.”
Susan looked at her son.
“What?”
Just that.
What?
Daniel moved toward her.
Richard stepped sideways.
Madison said, “Dad.”
He stopped.
Daniel’s father appeared behind Susan, a broad man with gray at his temples who had spent the cocktail hour telling anyone who would listen that he planned to dance until midnight.
“What the hell is going on?”
Daniel said, “Nothing.”
Madison almost laughed.
The sound rose in her chest and frightened her.
Nothing.
The ballroom was emptying around them. Her stepmother’s dress was torn. Her father had nearly attacked her fiancé. A bracelet Daniel claimed to have lost months ago had fallen out of Elena’s clothing.
Nothing.
Susan’s eyes moved to Elena’s shoulder.
Then to Daniel.
“Oh, Danny.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“Don’t.”
Madison watched mother and son look at each other and understood, without knowing why, that Susan knew something.
Not everything.
But something.
“What does she know?” Madison asked.
Daniel turned toward her.
“Nothing.”
Susan said, “Madison, I don’t.”
Daniel said, “Mom.”
Too quickly.
Susan stopped speaking.
Madison felt the room change again.
Not truth.
Leverage.
“Library,” she said.
This time nobody argued.
The library smelled faintly of leather and furniture polish.
It contained shelves no one had touched in years, a fireplace too shallow to use, and several low chairs selected by an interior designer for their appearance rather than comfort. Madison had taken engagement photos in that room six months earlier.
Daniel had stood behind her beside the fireplace with one hand around her waist.
The photo was already framed in their condo.
Madison suddenly wondered who would take it down.
She sat on the edge of a sofa because the structure of her wedding gown made sitting normally impossible.
Elena stood near the window.
Richard removed his jacket.
Elena looked at him.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
“I was going to give it to you.”
“I know.”
Richard folded the jacket over his arm instead.
It was the first time Madison had seen him obey Elena without a flicker of argument.
Daniel remained near the door.
“Can I speak now?”
Madison looked at him.
“No.”
His lips parted.
She held up the bracelet.
“When did you lose this?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You told me the clasp broke.”
“It did.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“At the gym?”
Daniel hesitated.
Madison felt a strange calm enter her.
“Did you tell me the gym?”
“I might have.”
“You did.”
“Okay.”
“Did you lose it there?”
“I said I don’t know.”
Richard made a quiet sound through his nose.
Madison looked at him.
He went still.
She turned back to Daniel.
“Were you in Elena’s room last night?”
“Yes.”
The answer was so immediate that Madison blinked.
Elena’s face did not change.
Daniel continued.
“She asked me to come.”
“No,” Elena said.
“You did.”
“No.”
“You texted me.”
“Three months ago.”
“You told me you needed to talk.”
“Three months ago.”
Daniel looked at Madison.
“This has been going on for a while.”
Madison stared at him.
“What has?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
Her skin went cold.
Elena closed her eyes.
Richard looked down at the jacket folded over his arm.
Madison understood before anyone spoke.
Not completely.
Enough.
“No,” she said.
Daniel took one step toward her.
“Madison.”
“No.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“That sentence has never once helped anyone.”
He stopped.
Madison looked at Elena.
Her stepmother had been married to Richard for eight years.
Madison had been twenty years old when they met.
She had disliked Elena immediately, then felt guilty about it, then disliked her for making her feel guilty.
Elena had been thirty-six, a museum development director with a quiet voice and a habit of leaving parties before dessert. She was not glamorous in the way Richard’s previous girlfriends had been. She wore old watches and flat shoes and disliked being photographed.
Madison had spent the first year waiting for the obvious motive to appear.
Money.
Status.
Access.
Something.
Instead Elena moved into Richard’s house and refused to redecorate Madison’s mother’s study because, as she put it, “That room already belongs to somebody.”
Madison had not forgiven her for being decent.
May you like
It had been easier when she was suspicious.
Over the years they had developed something that was not quite a mother-daughter relationship and not quite friendship. Elena remembered Madison’s coffee order but never gave advice unless asked. Madison sent her pictures of shoes and medical test results. They could spend an hour in a car without speaking.
