Chương 5
Richard did not answer.
Preston looked at me.
The fear in his face was different now.
It no longer came from being caught.
It came from not knowing whether he had been used too.
I hated that part of me recognized it.
I hated even more that I still cared.
The lead agent stepped between Richard and the rest of us.
“Mr. Vale, we are not conducting interviews in this room.”
Richard gave him a thin smile.
“Then perhaps you could stop my future daughter-in-law from conducting one.”
I looked at Preston.
He was staring at the forged signature.
Then he looked toward the hundred-dollar bill beside my mother’s chair.
His face changed again.
This time, when he looked back at me, there was no smirk left.
“Did you know about that?” I asked.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
And that silence frightened me more than any answer could have.
For several seconds, Preston stood with his mouth half open, as if the missing sentence might arrive if everyone simply waited long enough.
Richard looked at him with the exhausted contempt of a man discovering that a subordinate had become inconvenient.
“Do not answer questions,” Richard said.
Preston turned slowly toward his father.
“That wasn’t directed at you.”
“It should have been.”
Caroline moved closer to her son.
“Preston, sweetheart, listen to your father.”
He shook her hand off his arm.
I had seen him irritated with Caroline before, usually over seating charts or Christmas plans or the way she entered his apartment without knocking, but I had never seen him reject her touch.
The agent nearest us lifted one hand.
“Mr. Vale, nobody is required to speak with us tonight.”
Richard smiled without humor.
“Excellent.”
“But nobody should destroy, alter, conceal, or remove potentially relevant records or devices.”
That sentence changed the behavior of three people at once.
A man near table fourteen stopped reaching into his jacket.
One of Richard’s vice presidents lowered the phone he had been turning facedown.
Caroline looked toward the service corridor.
The woman in the catering jacket noticed.
So did I.
Preston remained focused on the papers in my mother’s hands.
“Can I see it?”
Mom hesitated.
The agent shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Preston’s face hardened.
“It concerns my family.”
“It may concern a federal investigation.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to wave it around and then tell me I can’t look at it.”
The agent’s expression did not change.
“You can speak to counsel.”
Preston laughed once.
“Apparently everyone here has counsel except me.”
“You have three lawyers at table six,” Caroline said.
He looked at her.
“That is exactly the problem.”
She went still.
A strange silence settled between them, more private than the room should have permitted.
Then one of the guests applauded.
Just once.
A single drunken clap from somewhere behind the cake.
His wife slapped his forearm.
“Don’t.”
“I thought she was finished.”
“She’s not giving a speech, Leonard.”
“I know that now.”
The ridiculous exchange broke something in the room.
People began moving again.
Waiters collected plates because they had apparently received no instruction not to.
The band leader spoke quietly to his musicians and then sat down behind the piano without playing.
A bridesmaid named Tessa came toward me carrying my phone.
“You left this at the table.”
“Thanks.”
She held it out, then did not release it when I took it.
Her eyes were wet.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“I laughed earlier.”
I glanced toward my mother.
Tessa followed my gaze.
“I didn’t laugh about the money.”
“You laughed at the fork.”
Her fingers slipped from the phone.
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
There was nothing useful to say.
She waited for forgiveness anyway.
I could see it in her face.
I had spent too many years providing comfort to people embarrassed by what they had done to me.
“Go sit down, Tess.”
She flinched.
Then she nodded and walked away.
My mother was watching.
“You didn’t have to be that hard on her,” she said.
I stared at her.
“Are you serious?”
“She feels bad.”
“So do I.”
“I know.”
“You’re defending her?”
“I’m not defending anybody.”
She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I just don’t want this night to turn you into somebody who enjoys hurting people back.”
The unfairness of it made my throat burn.
“They threw money at you.”
“I was there.”
“And you’re correcting me?”
“I’m your mother.”
Even now.
Federal agents in the ballroom.
A forged signature in her handbag.
My fiancé standing ten feet away looking as though his family had collapsed beneath him.
And Diane Mercer was still finding time to tell me when I was being rude.
I almost laughed.
Instead, I rubbed my forehead and immediately remembered the makeup artist telling me not to touch my face.
The thought was so stupid that a short sound escaped me.
Mom looked concerned.
“What?”
“My foundation.”
She blinked.
Then she started laughing.
Quietly at first.
I laughed too.
It lasted only a few seconds.
People nearby stared as if we had both lost our minds.
Maybe we had.
Then Mom reached up and dabbed beneath my eye with her thumb.
“You smudged it.”
“Great.”
“You still look pretty.”
“That feels aggressively irrelevant.”
“I paid for half that makeup artist.”
“You argued with her about the price for forty minutes.”
“She charged two hundred dollars to curl eyelashes.”
The agent nearest us glanced away, possibly to give us privacy or possibly because federal training had not covered bridal makeup disputes.
The tiny human normality of the moment steadied me more than any breathing technique could have.
Then Preston said my name.
I turned.
He stood alone now.
Richard had been pulled several yards away by two attorneys from table six.
Caroline was speaking urgently to another lawyer near the stage.
For the first time all night, nobody was positioned beside Preston.
“Can we talk?”
May you like
“Here?”
“Not in front of five hundred people.”
