Chương 12
He looked at me for another second, then left.
I did not breathe normally until the doors closed.
Arthur sat down heavily.
Leonard muttered, “Hell of a morning.”
Priya said, “That’s one description.”
For several minutes, the board dissolved into small, tense conversations.
Someone asked for coffee.
Someone else complained that the coffee machine outside had been broken for three days.
It was ridiculous and comforting.
Companies did not stop having broken appliances because marriages collapsed.
Dana handed me my sealed phone.
“Do not go home alone.”
“I need to get Mia.”
“Can someone else pick her up?”
“My neighbor.”
“Call her.”
I broke the seal.
The phone turned on with a flood of notifications.
There was no new message from Camila.
I called my neighbor, Jenna.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hey.”
“Can you keep Mia after school?”
A pause.
“Sure.”
Her voice changed.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Another pause.
“I saw something online.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Not Mia.”
She spoke quickly.
“Nothing about Mia.”
“What did you see?”
“A clip.”
Of course.
The call.
Somebody had recorded it.
“It’s everywhere in the finance people circles.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
“Do you need me to come get you?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
That made her laugh once.
“Better answer.”
“Just keep Mia away from phones.”
“She’s five.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
When I hung up, Dana was watching me.
“It leaked?”
“Yes.”
Arthur swore quietly.
Elise was already reaching for her phone.
Then mine buzzed again.
Camila.
One message.
I opened it.
I’m at a hotel near Penn Station.
He took my passport, but I found something else before I left.
A photograph followed.
It showed the inside of Gavin’s desk drawer.
Beneath a stack of folders lay my mother’s gold locket.
The one I had pawned yesterday.
My breath stopped.
I enlarged the image.
There was no mistake.
The tiny dent near the clasp had been there since I was fourteen and dropped it on the bathroom tile.
Dana leaned over.
“What is it?”
I could barely hear my own voice.
“My mother’s locket.”
“The one you pawned?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
I stared at the photograph.
“It was at the pawnshop yesterday afternoon.”
A new message appeared from Camila.
He had it last night.
Then another.
He told me he bought it back because he needed something that belonged to you.
I looked toward the boardroom door.
For the first time that day, I was not thinking about Summit Crest.
I was thinking about what Gavin had done between the pharmacy, the office, the affair, the threats, and the trust.
He had gone to the pawnshop.
He had retrieved my mother’s locket.
And instead of bringing it home, he had hidden it in his desk.
I stared at the photograph until the shape of the locket stopped looking like jewelry and started looking like evidence.
Dana read Camila’s messages twice.
“Do you know which pawnshop?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the receipt?”
“In my wallet.”
“Good.”
She held out her hand, and I gave it to her.
The paper was creased and damp from yesterday’s rain.
Dana photographed it, then handed it back.
“Do not contact Gavin about this.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She nodded.
“Then we preserve what we can.”
Camila agreed to meet us at the hotel with an attorney present.
By the time we reached Penn Station, the video from Gavin’s office had spread beyond finance circles.
A television over the hotel bar was showing a blurred still frame while a morning anchor talked about an unnamed executive under investigation.
I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.
Dana saw me looking.
“You don’t have to watch.”
“I know.”
I watched anyway.
The necklace glittered even through the blur.
Camila opened her hotel room door wearing jeans, an oversized sweatshirt, and no makeup.
She looked younger without the office clothes.
There was a suitcase open on the bed.
Half of it contained expensive dresses.
The other half contained things that looked like they had been thrown in without folding.
A toothbrush.
Three phone chargers.
A stuffed rabbit.
I looked at the rabbit longer than I should have.
“My sister gave it to me when I moved here,” Camila said.
I had not asked.
Dana introduced the attorney she had arranged for Camila through an independent employee-assistance referral.
His name was Samuel Ortiz.
He made it very clear he represented Camila, not me, not Summit Crest, and not the trust.
That made me trust him slightly more.
Camila sat on the edge of the bed.
Her hands shook.
“I didn’t know about the trust at first.”
I stayed standing.
“When did you know?”
“Maybe eight months ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
She looked at Samuel.
He nodded for her to continue.
“Gavin asked me to find old shareholder files.”
“For what reason?”
“He said Arthur was blocking a promotion because of a voting bloc.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
The honesty hurt.
“Then?”
“He got obsessive.”
She rubbed her thumb against the side of her index finger.
“He would ask for archived emails, old expense approvals, investor agreements.”
“Did you give them to him?”
“Some.”
Dana asked, “Through authorized channels?”
Camila shook her head.
“No.”
Samuel said, “She is not making a legal characterization of access.”
Dana nodded.
Camila continued.
“I had administrative access because I handled scheduling and document prep.”
“You helped him.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“I helped him.”
There was no apology in the sentence.
Not yet.
I appreciated that more than tears.
“Why?”
She swallowed.
“At first because he was my boss.”
Then she laughed, bitter and quiet.
“Then because he was sleeping with me.”
I looked away.
Outside the window, trains slid beneath the station roof.
“He told me you knew.”
I turned back.
“About you?”
May you like
“He said your marriage was basically over.”
“Did he tell you we had an open marriage?”
