Part 2
Nathan’s voice remained controlled, but Graham saw Emma react to the edge beneath it. She loosened one hand from the locket and slipped it inside Graham’s coat sleeve.
Margaret rubbed her thumb along the folded arm of her glasses.
“I saw Emma come downstairs,” she said. “Mrs. Hale went up a few minutes later. Then there was an argument near the stairs.”
“Did you see the bracelet?”
“Not then.”
Victoria set down her glass. “Because it was missing.”
Nathan pulled out the chair nearest the head of the table but did not sit. He seemed to reconsider the act, pushed the chair back into place, and looked at Emma.
“Can you tell me why you were in the room?”
Emma swallowed.
Victoria’s posture sharpened.
Graham bent slightly, not enough to speak for the girl, only enough that she could see his face without looking across the table.
“There’s no rush,” he said.
Nathan’s jaw tightened. Graham knew what his son heard in those words: that his daughter needed protection from him too.
Emma took a breath that trembled on the way in.
“She told me to go.”
Nathan looked at Victoria.
Victoria gave a small, incredulous shake of her head. “I did not.”
“You did,” Emma whispered.
“When?”
“After the people left.”
“What did she tell you to do?” Nathan asked.
“The programs. She said there were more upstairs. On the desk.”
Margaret’s folded charity program shifted as her fingers pressed down on it.
Victoria noticed. Graham noticed her noticing.
“There were no programs in my room,” Victoria said.
Emma’s eyes dropped.
“She’s confused. It has been a long night.”
Graham moved his hand from Emma’s shoulder to the back of her head, resting his palm lightly against her dark hair.
“She knows where she was sent.”
Victoria’s restraint cracked just enough to show irritation.
“You weren’t there, Graham.”
“No. I was downstairs speaking to Nathan’s donors because you asked me to keep them occupied while you disappeared.”
“I went to handle a private matter.”
“The bracelet?”
Her eyes held his. “Among other things.”
Nathan reached for the jewelry box. Victoria put her hand over its lid before he could touch it.
“Leave it.”
He stopped.
The silence that followed was different from the earlier ones. It was no longer the pause after an accusation. It was the pause after a refusal that had revealed more than intended.
Nathan looked at her hand covering the box.
“Why?”
“It belonged to your grandmother.”
“So did half the silverware. You don’t slap my hand away from a fork.”
“I don’t want fingerprints all over it.”
Graham almost laughed, not from humor but from disbelief. He kept the sound in his chest.
Nathan studied his wife for another moment, then turned to Emma.
“Did you open the box?”
“No.”
“Did you touch the bracelet?”
“No.”
“Did you see it in the room?”
Emma shook her head.
“Then what did you see?”
Victoria’s hand remained on the box.
Emma looked toward Margaret.
Margaret looked away.
Nathan followed the exchange.
“What did you see?” he asked again, more gently.
“There were papers,” Emma said.
“What papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“On the desk?”
She nodded.
Victoria exhaled through her nose.
“There are always papers on my desk. We run a foundation.”
Emma’s fingers returned to the locket. “She got mad when she saw me looking.”
“I found you going through private documents.”
“I dropped the program.”
“What program?” Nathan asked.
The girl looked at the folded one beneath Margaret’s glasses.
Margaret lifted her hand from it as if the paper had become warm.
“That one,” Emma said.
No one moved.
The program was thick cream stock, folded twice, with embossed winter branches on the cover. The lettering had been printed in pale silver and could not be read in the dim light unless it was tilted toward the chandelier. It had been placed at every setting during the charity dinner earlier in the evening. Most had gone home in handbags or been left on the reception tables. This one had a faint crease near the bottom corner.
Margaret picked it up.
“Where did you find this?” Nathan asked her.
“It was on Emma’s chair.”
“It wasn’t,” Emma said.
The words came faster this time.
Margaret looked at her.
“It was in the room,” Emma continued. “I carried it down. Then Mrs. Hale took it.”
Victoria’s face stayed composed, but the pulse near her temple became visible.
“Emma,” she said, “you need to stop.”
The girl flinched.
Nathan stepped between them so quickly that Victoria’s hand came off the jewelry box.
“Don’t speak to her like that.”
“I am trying to keep her from saying something she doesn’t understand.”
“Then let her finish.”
“I came home to find your daughter alone in our bedroom, reading confidential financial material. My bracelet was gone. She ran when I asked what she was doing. Now Graham has decided I’m the criminal because it is easier than admitting she has been acting out for months.”
Nathan stared at her.
“She has been acting out?”
“You’ve been away.”
“I’ve been gone for six days.”
“This did not begin six days ago.”
Emma’s face changed. The tears that had been collecting finally slipped down her cheeks, but she made no sound. She looked at Nathan as if waiting to see whether he would recognize whatever Victoria meant.
Graham felt anger move through him, slow and exact.
“What has she done?” he asked.
Victoria turned toward him. “This is between Nathan and me.”
“No. You accused her in front of me and Margaret, at the family table, and ordered me to remove her from her own home. You made it everyone’s business.”
“This is not her home.”
May you like
The sentence landed so cleanly that for a moment no one reacted.
The lodge had belonged to Graham’s parents. Nathan had learned to walk holding the lower branches of the Christmas tree in the great room. Laura’s ashes had been scattered on the ridge above the frozen lake. Emma had spent every winter she could remember in the smallest upstairs room because she liked the window seat and the sound snow made against the glass.
