Chương 5
“I used to be kinder.”
“No, Daniel.”
I slipped my phone into my bag.
“You used to need me more.”
For once, he had no answer.
I looked at Claire.
“Keep the footage secure.”
She nodded.
Then I looked at Vanessa.
“Come upstairs with me.”
Daniel moved immediately.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
Vanessa stared at him.
I did too.
He heard himself.
Slowly, he stepped aside.
Vanessa picked up her handbag.
“I’m coming.”
Daniel’s face lost the last of its practiced calm.
“Vanessa.”
She walked past him.
He caught her elbow.
This time, five people saw it.
Vanessa looked down at his hand.
Daniel released her.
She did not say a word.
Neither did I.
We walked toward the ballroom doors together while behind us the chandeliers burned above hundreds of empty chairs waiting for a story Daniel no longer controlled.
The elevator doors closed before Daniel reached the lobby, but I could still hear him calling Vanessa’s name as the car began to rise.
Vanessa stood beside me staring at the illuminated numbers above the door.
Her breathing had become shallow.
I pressed nineteen.
Neither of us spoke.
A man in a chef’s jacket boarded at the seventh floor carrying a silver tray covered in plastic wrap.
He glanced at Vanessa’s gown, then at my black cocktail dress, and smiled politely.
“Big night.”
“Yes,” I said.
Vanessa made a sound that might have been a laugh.
The chef looked at her.
“You okay?”
“Perfect.”
He nodded as if he had heard that answer before and got off at fourteen.
When the doors closed again, Vanessa pressed both palms against the mirrored wall.
“I’m not stupid.”
I watched our reflections rather than looking directly at her.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You think I’m stupid.”
“I think you slept with my husband for almost a year.”
“Eight months.”
I turned.
She looked embarrassed.
“That isn’t better,” I said.
“I know.”
The elevator continued upward.
She rubbed a thumb beneath one eye, careful not to smear her makeup.
“I believed him.”
“So did I.”
That silenced her.
The doors opened onto the nineteenth floor.
Caroline was waiting in the corridor outside Suite 1907.
When she saw Vanessa, her entire body stiffened.
“No.”
I stepped out.
“She needs to hear this.”
Caroline shook her head.
“She absolutely does not.”
Vanessa stayed inside the elevator.
For the first time since we left the ballroom, she looked frightened in a way Daniel had not rehearsed.
I put my hand against the elevator door before it could close.
“Vanessa.”
She looked at me.
“You can leave.”
Caroline made an impatient sound.
I ignored her.
“If you leave now, Daniel will tell you whatever version makes this survivable for him.”
Vanessa stared at the carpet.
“If you come inside, you may hear something you wish you hadn’t.”
“That’s a hell of an invitation.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
She stepped out.
Caroline turned and walked back into the suite without another word.
Miriam stood by the windows with her phone in one hand.
Noah sat at the dining table surrounded by printouts, two laptops, a legal pad, and a sandwich he had apparently forgotten to eat.
He looked up when Vanessa entered.
“Oh.”
“That’s approximately what I said,” Caroline muttered.
Vanessa closed the door behind us.
Miriam’s eyes moved over her slowly.
“I’m Miriam Shaw.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Those rarely affect billing.”
Vanessa almost smiled.
It vanished immediately.
Noah pushed his glasses higher.
“Is Daniel coming up?”
“Probably.”
Miriam walked to the door and turned the deadbolt.
“That buys us thirty seconds of adulthood.”
I set my handbag on the console table.
“What did Caroline tell you?”
Caroline had moved to the minibar.
She opened a bottle of water and did not drink it.
Noah looked at her.
She looked at me.
“Belladonna was my father’s company.”
I waited.
The sentence did not fit anywhere.
“Richard owned it?”
“Not exactly.”
Caroline twisted the cap back onto the bottle.
“He created it.”
“For what?”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“To move money out of Whitmore Development without Daniel’s mother finding it.”
Vanessa blinked.
Miriam said nothing.
I felt something in me become very still.
“Why?”
Caroline looked toward the window.
“My father had another family.”
The city beyond the glass remained offensively beautiful.
Late sunlight burned against the towers along Sixth Avenue.
Traffic moved far below us.
A helicopter crossed the western sky.
I looked at Caroline.
“Another family.”
“A woman in Switzerland.”
“While he was married to your mother.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Twenty-three years.”
I sat down.
I did not do it gracefully.
The chair hit the backs of my knees and I dropped into it.
Richard Whitmore had been dead six years.
I had defended his estate.
I had given a eulogy at his memorial.
I had once told Daniel that his father’s greatest virtue was loyalty.
Caroline watched me absorb the stupidity of that memory.
“There’s a son,” she said.
Noah turned his laptop.
“Julian Mercier.”
A photograph appeared on the screen.
The man was in his late thirties or early forties, dark-haired, narrow-faced, standing outside what looked like an architecture office in Geneva.
His expression had something familiar in it.
Not Daniel.
Richard.
The resemblance was in the eyes.
I hated recognizing it.
“Does Daniel know?”
Caroline laughed without humor.
“He’s known since he was twenty-six.”
I looked at her.
“You knew too.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since I was thirty.”
“You’re fifty-one.”
“I know how old I am.”
Miriam stepped between us before my anger found somewhere easier to land than Daniel.
“Caroline, explain Belladonna.”
Caroline took a long breath.
“My father used it for Julian and Julian’s mother.”
“Support payments?”
“Property, tuition, investments, whatever he thought would keep them secure and quiet.”
Noah said, “The company was dormant for years after Richard died.”
Caroline nodded.
“Daniel reactivated it.”
“Why?”
She looked at me.
May you like
“Because Julian had something Daniel needed.”
A knock hit the suite door.
