Chương 11
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“The actions came from Celeste’s office.”
He did not answer.
Victor continued.
“Security footage shows someone entering the office at three eleven.”
“Who?”
“I’m waiting on the clip.”
We listened to keyboard clicks.
Then nothing.
“Victor?”
“I have it.”
His voice changed.
“Who is it?”
A long pause.
“Not Celeste.”
My pulse jumped.
“Grant?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Victor sounded almost embarrassed by the answer.
“Daniel Kerr.”
No one spoke.
Elliot broke the silence first.
“Are you certain?”
“I worked with him for twelve years.”
“When does he leave?”
“Three twenty-nine.”
“Carrying anything?”
Victor watched.
“No.”
“Anyone meet him?”
“Wait.”
The clicking stopped.
“There’s someone outside the office when he comes out.”
“Who?”
Victor breathed in.
Then he said, “Richard.”
Dad made a small sound.
Not denial.
Confusion.
“That’s impossible.”
Victor said nothing.
Dad’s voice rose.
“I was in the ballroom rehearsal.”
“At three twenty-nine?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Victor sounded uncomfortable.
“Mara, the man on camera looks like your father.”
“Looks like?”
“The angle isn’t good.”
“Can you send Elliot a still?”
“I’m doing it.”
Elliot received it first.
He went quiet.
“What?” I asked.
“It resembles Richard.”
Dad sounded furious now.
“Resembles?”
“Richard, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down when someone is apparently walking around my hotel wearing my face.”
Despite everything, Victor snorted.
Then Elliot said, “There’s something wrong with the image.”
“What?”
“Height.”
Dad went silent.
Elliot continued.
“The person outside the office is shorter than Richard.”
“How much?”
“Hard to tell.”
Victor said, “Maybe two inches.”
Dad spoke immediately.
“Grant is two inches shorter than me.”
The air seemed to tighten.
I looked at the gala photo saved on my phone.
Dad and Grant both wore black tuxedos.
Same broad shoulders.
Same dark hair from behind.
Same hotel where staff often saw what they expected to see.
“Can you zoom the face?” I asked.
“Not enough to identify cleanly,” Victor said.
“What about the suit?”
“Black tuxedo.”
“Grant was dressed for the gala already?”
“Yes.”
Dad answered this time.
“He arrived around three.”
“Could he have used your credentials?”
Silence.
Then Dad said, “Yes.”
“How?”
“My password manager.”
“What about it?”
“He helped me reset it last month.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he had.
Elliot said, “Richard, change every credential you control.”
“From a clean device.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Dad did not argue.
At 7:38, a new message arrived from the unknown number.
This one had no photograph.
You are looking at the wrong Halston.
I read it twice.
Then I understood.
Not Richard.
Me.
My stomach turned.
Before I could forward it, another message appeared.
Your mother knew.
I read the message three times before my brain allowed the words to mean anything.
Your mother knew.
My first instinct was anger at the sender.
My second was worse.
“What is it?” Dad asked through the conference call.
I forwarded the messages to Elliot instead of answering.
He went silent.
“Mara?” Dad said.
“Someone says Mom knew.”
Dad did not ask what she knew.
That frightened me more than if he had.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
His breathing changed.
“Richard,” Elliot said, “answer carefully.”
Dad ignored him.
“Your mother suspected Northline.”
“Before she died?”
“Yes.”
My knees weakened, and I sat at the kitchen table.
Mom had died six years ago.
Grant had supposedly become involved with Northline only later.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Northline had another name then.”
“What name?”
“Mercer Property Services.”
Caleb Mercer.
Grant’s business partner.
Dad continued slowly, as if opening a door he had spent years leaning against.
“Elizabeth found duplicate vendor charges during the last year she was working regularly.”
“How much?”
“Nothing like now.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“About two hundred thousand.”
“And what happened?”
“She confronted Daniel.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Daniel was involved?”
“No.”
Dad answered too quickly, then corrected himself.
“She thought he was at first.”
“What changed?”
“Daniel traced several payments to an outside account.”
“Northline.”
“Mercer Property Services.”
“Whose account?”
Dad did not answer.
“Whose?”
“Celeste’s.”
The room seemed to become very quiet.
I heard a bus hiss to a stop outside.
Someone laughed on the sidewalk below.
Ordinary morning continued while my family rearranged itself inside my head.
“Celeste was stealing from the hotel while Mom was alive?”
“No.”
Dad sounded almost desperate.
“The payments were reimbursements.”
“For what?”
“Event expenses, consulting, donor development.”
“Real expenses?”
“Some.”
“And the rest?”
“I don’t know.”
I shut my eyes.
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“No, you’re telling me the parts you can survive.”
Dad went silent.
Elliot said my name softly, but I kept going.
“Mom found money going to Celeste.”
“Yes.”
“She told you.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I confronted Celeste.”
“What did she say?”
“That Elizabeth hated her.”
The ugliness of it made me laugh once.
Mom had been dying.
Celeste had already been inside our lives by then, though Dad insisted their relationship had not started until later.
I had never believed that timeline completely.
Now I wondered whether the emotional betrayal had been the smallest one.
“What did Mom do?”
“She wanted Daniel to audit everything.”
“And did he?”
“He started.”
“Then?”
Dad’s voice dropped.
“Your mother got worse.”
That was the cruel efficiency of illness.
It interrupted investigations.
Arguments.
Plans.
Everything except itself.
“She died before Daniel finished,” Dad said.
“And you stopped him.”
It was not a question.
“Yes.”
I stared at the pearl earrings reflected faintly in the dark laptop screen.
“Why?”
“Because I was falling apart.”
“That doesn’t explain stopping an audit.”
“Celeste said pursuing it would turn Elizabeth’s last months into a scandal.”
“And you listened.”
“Yes.”
“She was protecting herself.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it.
Dad did not answer.
Elliot broke in.
“Richard, did Elizabeth leave any audit materials?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Dad inhaled.
May you like
“There was a blue file box in her home office.”
I stood.
