Part 4
He softened his tone.
“Where is the West Ridge authorization now?”
Margaret looked at the folded program.
“I don’t know.”
“You said it was inside that.”
“It was.”
Victoria folded her arms. “Then perhaps Emma took that as well.”
Graham’s palm struck the back of the chair before he knew he had moved. The crystal glasses shivered.
Emma jumped.
He stepped away immediately.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
She nodded, but her fingers had returned to the locket.
Graham turned to Victoria. “You will not accuse her again.”
“You don’t control what I say.”
“No. But I can control whether I remain in the room to hear it.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “You were ordered to leave.”
“This is my house.”
“You transferred it to Nathan.”
“I transferred ownership. I did not transfer my spine.”
Nathan held up one hand.
“Stop.”
The old reflex in Graham obeyed. For years, whenever Nathan was home, Graham had tried to let his son lead his own household. He had mistaken distance for respect and silence for peace.
Nathan looked at Margaret.
“Tell me everything you know. Not what you think Victoria wants you to say. Not what you think I want. Just what happened.”
Margaret picked up her glasses but did not put them on.
“At four-thirty, the final programs were brought from the foundation office and placed in the east study. The event had already started. I carried them into the dining room. One had the authorization folded inside it. I recognized the blue payment paper and removed the program from the stack.”
“Why was the authorization in the program?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who had it last?”
Margaret hesitated.
Victoria spoke before she could answer.
“This is ridiculous. Anyone could have moved a sheet of paper.”
Nathan turned toward her. “Let her speak.”
Margaret swallowed.
“I had it in my office yesterday. Mrs. Hale asked me to bring it to the lodge.”
“For signature?”
“It was already signed.”
“Then why bring it?”
“She wanted the original destroyed after the payment cleared.”
Emma’s head turned toward Victoria.
Nathan went very still.
Graham leaned both hands against the back of Emma’s chair. The wood felt warm where she had been sitting during dinner.
Victoria’s voice lowered.
“You are exhausted, Margaret.”
“No.”
“You have been making mistakes since Martin’s surgery.”
Margaret’s face lost color.
Graham knew little about her husband beyond a heart operation in October and an insurance dispute that had left them paying more than expected. Victoria had organized a foundation “advance” when Margaret missed two weeks of work. Graham had thought it generous. He wondered now whether generosity was the word Margaret used.
Nathan looked at her.
“Did Victoria ask you to destroy a signed authorization?”
Margaret’s thumb rubbed the hinge of her glasses.
“Yes.”
Victoria turned toward Nathan. “I asked her to shred a duplicate. The original was filed electronically.”
“There is no electronic original,” Margaret said. “There is a scan. The paper had the vendor’s bank details and both signatures.”
Victoria’s eyes sharpened. “You signed it.”
“I know.”
“You processed it.”
“I know.”
“You called me twice because you wanted the payment released before the audit deadline.”
Margaret’s voice became smaller. “Because you told me I would be held responsible if it wasn’t.”
“You were responsible.”
Nathan leaned back in the chair and looked toward the fireplace.
For perhaps half a minute, no one spoke. The room did not become still. The fire kept consuming wood. Melted snow slid from Nathan’s shoes and darkened the floor. Somewhere inside the walls, the old heating system knocked twice.
Emma whispered, “Grandpa?”
Graham bent.
“Can I have water?”
He poured from the glass bottle at the center of the table. His hand was not as steady as he wanted it to be. He filled her glass halfway so she would not have to lift much weight.
She drank with both hands.
It was such a normal movement that it hurt to watch.
Nathan waited until she set the glass down.
“Why was Emma sent upstairs?” he asked.
Margaret looked at her.
Emma answered.
“Mrs. Hale said there were programs on her desk. She said the table looked empty.”
Victoria gave a sharp breath. “There were gaps after the donors left. I may have told her to check the study.”
“You said bedroom,” Nathan told Emma.
“She said the study first. Then she said maybe they were upstairs.”
“Did she go alone?”
Emma nodded.
“What happened when you reached the room?”
“The door was open.”
“Was anyone inside?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I saw the program on the desk. The corner was under some papers, so I pulled it out. One paper fell.”
“The authorization?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did it look like?”
She frowned, trying.
“Blue at the top.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Emma continued.
“There was a picture of a building clipped to it.”
Graham remembered the rendering presented at the board meeting: a timber-and-glass retreat center surrounded by aspens. The image had looked expensive and vague, the sort of architectural picture designed to impress donors who would never ask whether the land underneath it existed.
“What did you do with the paper?” Nathan asked.
“I put it back.”
“Where?”
“On the desk.”
“Did you read it?”
“I read West Ridge because that’s the name of the road by Mom’s tree.”
Nathan looked at Graham.
Laura’s ashes had been scattered near a ridge road on the north side of the property. It was not officially called West Ridge, but Emma had called it that since she was six.
“Then what?” he asked.
“I picked up the program. Mrs. Hale came in and asked what I was doing.”
“Did she mention the bracelet?”
“No.”
Victoria’s hand moved to one diamond earring, adjusted it, and fell.
Emma’s voice weakened.
“She took the program. She saw the paper on the desk. Then she told me to go downstairs.”
May you like
“When did she accuse you?”
“When I was by the stairs. She came down and asked where the bracelet was.”
