Chương 4
Daniel stepped toward her.
“Vanessa.”
She backed away.
“You said the messages were escalating.”
“They were.”
“You said she followed me.”
“I had evidence.”
“You showed me photographs.”
My stomach tightened.
“What photographs?”
Vanessa looked from him to me.
“The restaurant.”
“What restaurant?”
Daniel said, “Do not answer her.”
That was when Vanessa finally understood that his concern was no longer her safety.
It was information control.
She hugged the handbag against her ribs.
“Balthazar.”
I searched my memory.
I had eaten there twice that year.
Once with Miriam.
Once with my sister on her birthday.
“What date?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“I don’t.”
“Was I alone?”
“No.”
“With whom?”
Daniel moved between us.
“That’s enough.”
Vanessa raised her voice.
“With a woman.”
Miriam.
Of course.
The investigator had not merely been following me.
He had been building a sequence.
I asked, “Did Daniel tell you I was following you that day?”
“Yes.”
“I was meeting my attorney.”
Vanessa looked at Daniel.
He said, “She’s lying.”
I reached for my phone.
His hand shot out and closed around my wrist.
Everything stopped.
Not metaphorically.
The florist stopped moving.
Luis stopped breathing.
Claire’s hand froze above the console.
Daniel’s grip was not crushing.
It did not need to be.
The important thing was that he had touched me first.
I looked down at his hand.
He released me.
“Don’t start making calls.”
I rubbed the place beneath my watch.
“Why?”
“Because you’re emotional.”
Claire made another small sound.
I looked at her.
“Did that camera get it?”
Daniel’s face changed.
Claire stared at the nearest rig.
“Yes.”
He lunged toward the console.
Luis stepped fully into his path this time.
“Sir.”
“Move.”
“I can’t.”
“You absolutely can.”
Claire grabbed the portable drive from beside the switcher.
Daniel saw it.
“So that’s what this is.”
“No,” she said.
He pointed toward her hand.
“Give me the drive.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
She held the drive behind her back.
Daniel looked at Luis.
“Take it from her.”
Luis blinked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“No, sir.”
Daniel stared at him as though refusal from a hotel technician had violated a law of nature.
I should have felt satisfaction.
Instead, I felt sick.
Every new mistake he made confirmed that we were closer to something he considered worth protecting.
Vanessa sat down abruptly on the edge of the stage.
Her ivory skirt pooled around her.
“I need water.”
Nobody moved.
She laughed once and covered her face.
“This is insane.”
Daniel turned toward her.
“Vanessa, look at me.”
She did not.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, she lowered her hands.
“You knew,” she said.
“Knew what?”
“That she had an attorney.”
Daniel glanced at me.
“That means nothing.”
“You told me she was spiraling.”
“She was.”
“You said she had no idea about us until last month.”
I kept my face still.
Vanessa continued.
“You said she found out because she saw us leaving the restaurant.”
Daniel said nothing.
I had never seen them leaving any restaurant.
He had constructed that discovery too.
Vanessa’s eyes moved toward me.
“When did you find out?”
“Three months ago.”
She stared.
Daniel said, “She’s manipulating you.”
Vanessa ignored him.
“How?”
“The marble in your photograph.”
For a second she looked offended by the banality of it.
Then she let out a breath.
“The flowers.”
“Yes.”
“I told him I shouldn’t post them.”
Daniel said, “This conversation is over.”
“No,” Vanessa said.
Her voice was quiet now.
“It isn’t.”
She looked down at her dress.
“I bought this myself.”
None of us knew what to do with that.
She pinched the fabric between two fingers.
“He told me not to submit it for reimbursement because it would look strange.”
Claire looked at me.
I looked at Daniel.
Vanessa gave a tired, almost embarrassed laugh.
“I thought that meant he was protecting me.”
Daniel’s patience finally broke.
“Vanessa, stop talking.”
She stood.
“No.”
He took one step toward her.
She stepped backward.
The rehearsal had become real, except nobody was following his choreography.
I said, “Did he ask you to send the threatening messages?”
Vanessa’s head jerked up.
“No.”
Daniel answered at the same time.
“Of course not.”
I watched her, not him.
“Who gave them to you?”
“They came to my phone.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Daniel know about them before you showed him?”
Silence.
Daniel said, “This is absurd.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
Not with tears.
With calculation.
She was assembling memories.
“He told me to check my blocked folder.”
Daniel went still.
I said, “Why?”
“He said you might use a spoofed number.”
“And there was already a message there?”
“Yes.”
“How would he know?”
“I didn’t think about it.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“Congratulations, Evelyn.”
He spread his hands.
“You’ve frightened her enough that she’s rewriting everything.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“I’m not rewriting anything.”
“You’re upset.”
“You keep saying that when women disagree with you.”
The sentence landed harder than she intended.
I saw it in her face.
Daniel saw it too.
For one strange second, Vanessa and I looked at each other with the recognition of people who had discovered they had been given different rooms in the same prison.
I hated her still.
That did not disappear because she had also been deceived.
But hatred became more difficult when the person you hated began bleeding from a wound you recognized.
My phone buzzed.
Miriam.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
Her voice was clipped.
“Ballroom.”
“We need you upstairs.”
I looked at Daniel.
“Why?”
Noah spoke in the background.
Then Miriam returned.
“Because Caroline just told us why Belladonna was created.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did she say?”
Miriam paused.
“Not on the phone.”
Daniel was watching me now.
He could not hear her words, but he knew my face.
Twelve years gave him that much.
“What happened?” he asked.
I ended the call.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
May you like
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“You used to say I was good at it.”
