Part 5
“Had you seen it?”
“No.”
“Had you seen the box?”
Emma shook her head.
“It was open when we came to dinner,” Graham said. “Victoria carried it in.”
Nathan turned.
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“Was the bracelet inside?”
“I didn’t look closely. I noticed the box because it was your grandmother’s. The hinge squeaks.”
Nathan looked at the box.
Victoria’s hand went to it again, slower this time.
“She found the bracelet,” she said. “That should be the end of this particular issue.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the box.”
“In the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Then why bring it to dinner?”
“I wanted her to admit what she had done.”
Nathan stared at her. “You displayed an heirloom in an open box beside your plate to interrogate a child?”
“When you say it that way—”
“What other way is there?”
Victoria pushed her chair back.
“I am not sitting here while four people construct a conspiracy out of a misunderstanding.”
Emma’s voice came from beside Nathan.
“Five.”
Victoria stopped.
The girl’s hands were in her lap now. She had released the locket at last, though the silver oval remained crooked against her collar.
“There are five people,” she said.
No one answered.
Victoria looked at her. For one instant, something moved across her face that Graham could not name. Shame, perhaps. Or anger at having been corrected by someone she had tried to erase.
Then it was gone.
Nathan stood.
“Sit down.”
“You don’t order me to sit.”
“You ordered my father to take my daughter out of the house.”
“I was angry.”
“So am I.”
He did not shout. The restraint made Victoria study him more carefully than she would have studied rage.
Nathan touched the back of Emma’s chair.
“I’m going to ask you once more. Did you see Emma take that bracelet?”
“No.”
“Did anyone tell you they saw her take it?”
“No.”
“Was it ever in her room, her luggage, her hands, or her clothing?”
“I did not search her.”
“Did she confess?”
“No.”
“Then you had no basis to call her a thief.”
“She was in my room. The bracelet was not where I left it.”
“Where did you leave it?”
Victoria’s answer came too late.
“On the dressing table.”
“In the box?”
“Yes.”
“Open or closed?”
“Closed.”
Nathan lifted the lid slightly and let it fall.
The hinge gave a thin, complaining squeak.
Emma looked up.
Graham remembered the sound when Victoria had brought the box into the dining room. He remembered because it had made his mother’s old spaniel lift its head from beneath the table thirty years earlier. The dog had been dead longer than Emma had been alive, yet the squeak had carried the memory intact.
Nathan lifted the bracelet without touching the stones, holding it by the gold clasp.
Victoria stepped toward him.
“Put it down.”
He examined it under the chandelier.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
He placed it back inside.
His gaze moved to Margaret.
“You were taking photographs during the reception.”
Her expression changed.
Victoria saw it.
“I took some for the foundation archive,” Margaret said.
“Was Victoria wearing the bracelet?”
Margaret did not answer.
Nathan held out his hand.
“Your phone.”
Victoria laughed once. “You cannot be serious.”
Margaret removed the phone from the inner pocket of her jacket.
She unlocked it and gave it to Nathan.
He scrolled through the images in silence.
Graham could see only brief reflections in the screen: the chandelier, winter branches, donors standing in front of the stone fireplace before the family dinner began. Margaret’s photographs were practical rather than beautiful. She had captured centerpieces, place cards, and groups of guests looking in different directions.
Nathan stopped at one.
He enlarged it.
“What time did Emma go upstairs?”
Victoria’s face remained neutral. “Around six-thirty.”
“It was six-twelve,” Emma said.
Nathan looked at her.
“I checked the clock because you said I could call you after six.”
He glanced down at the phone.
The photograph had been taken at 6:21.
He turned the screen toward Victoria.
She stood between Graham and a pair of departing donors, smiling with one hand resting against her waist.
The emerald bracelet circled her wrist.
Graham looked at the image, then at the open box.
Victoria did not step back. She did not cry or deny the date. Her face seemed to lose dimension, becoming pale and carefully arranged.
Nathan placed the phone on the table.
“The bracelet was not missing when Emma was in your room.”
“The timestamp could be wrong.”
“It isn’t,” Margaret said.
Victoria’s gaze snapped toward her.
Margaret’s voice shook, but she continued.
“I took another photograph of the clock because the auction software had ended late. They match within a minute.”
“You have been building a case against me.”
“No.”
“You sent the email.”
Margaret’s fingers closed around the arms of her glasses.
Nathan did not look surprised.
“Did you?”
She nodded.
The admission seemed to make her smaller. Graham had expected relief. Instead, Margaret looked like someone who had finally stepped off a ledge and discovered the ground was farther away than she had imagined.
“I sent it yesterday,” she said.
“Why anonymously?” Nathan asked.
“Because my name is on the authorizations.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
The number entered the room and changed its size.
Nathan sat down again.
Graham remained standing because sitting felt too much like accepting what came next.
Victoria moved toward the fireplace. The red satin of her dress caught the flames, giving her reflection in the dark window a wavering edge.
“Margaret has been mishandling accounts for months,” she said. “She knows an internal review is coming. She is trying to protect herself.”
Margaret looked at her folded glasses.
“Yes,” she said.
Victoria turned.
May you like
Margaret put them on.
“Yes, I am trying to protect myself. I should have stopped after the first payment. I should have called Graham when he asked about the contract. I should have refused to sign anything else. I did none of those things.”
