Chương 4
Ethan used it for company dinners and family events because it was closer to Nashville than her farm outside Franklin.
Vanessa had visited six times.
Apparently nobody had mentioned the ownership structure.
Margaret did not enjoy the look on George’s face as much as she expected.
Power was satisfying mostly in imagination.
In real life, displaying it often left an unpleasant taste.
She turned to Luis.
“Where is the nearest place I can change?”
“There’s a staff restroom through the kitchen, ma’am.”
“The upstairs guest rooms are closer,” Ethan said.
Margaret shook her head.
“I’m dripping.”
“You own the floors.”
“That doesn’t mean I need to ruin them.”
Luis smiled before catching himself.
Margaret smiled back.
For a few seconds, the whole disaster felt strangely ordinary.
She was wet.
Her knee hurt.
Her son was angry.
Somebody in the kitchen had burned butter, and the smell carried through the open doors.
Life refused to become as cinematic as people expected when something terrible happened.
There were always wet socks.
“Five minutes,” Margaret told Ethan.
He nodded.
“I’ll wait in the library.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“You’re really going to interrogate me?”
Ethan looked exhausted.
“No.”
“Then what is this?”
“I’m going to listen.”
Margaret walked toward the house with Luis beside her.
At the terrace steps, she glanced back.
Vanessa stood alone for a moment while her parents argued quietly several yards away.
Then Patricia returned and put an arm around her daughter.
Vanessa let herself be held.
Margaret looked away.
In the staff restroom, she peeled off the soaked shawl and blouse and discovered purple bruising already forming below her kneecap.
Luis waited outside and found a clean chef’s jacket somebody had left on a hook.
“It’s not exactly formalwear,” he said through the door.
“Tonight’s standards seem flexible.”
He laughed.
Margaret changed into the jacket and kept her damp trousers.
The sleeves reached almost to her fingertips.
When she came out, Luis handed her a paper cup of coffee.
“Kitchen coffee,” he warned.
“So it may qualify as a controlled substance.”
Margaret took a sip.
It was terrible.
“Perfect.”
Luis hesitated.
“Mrs. Carter?”
“Yes?”
“I really didn’t know who you were.”
“I know.”
“I mean, when I brought the towel.”
“I know that too.”
His face relaxed.
She studied him.
“You were scared.”
“My rent is due Friday.”
“That generally improves a person’s respect for management.”
He gave an embarrassed grin.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“Do not turn tonight into a story about how brave you were.”
The grin vanished.
“You were brave.”
“But being brave once doesn’t make us good.”
She looked down at the paper cup.
“And being cruel once may not tell us everything either.”
Luis glanced toward the hall.
“You think she deserves another chance?”
Margaret considered the question.
“I think my son deserves the truth.”
She left before Luis could ask what that meant.
The library door was closed.
Voices carried through the wood.
Vanessa was crying.
Ethan was not.
Margaret stopped with her hand on the brass knob.
For the first time since arriving, she considered walking away.
She could go upstairs, change into the clothes stored in her bedroom, have her driver come from Franklin, and let Ethan handle his own life.
That would have been the respectful thing.
It might also have been cowardice disguised as respect.
She opened the door.
Vanessa sat on the leather sofa with her shoes off and her feet tucked beneath her.
Her face was blotched from crying.
Ethan stood beside the fireplace.
Neither of them looked relieved to see Margaret.
“Sit,” Ethan said.
Margaret chose the armchair opposite Vanessa.
Nobody spoke.
The old clock on the mantel ticked loudly enough to become irritating.
Finally Vanessa wiped her nose with a tissue.
“I’m sorry I sprayed you.”
Margaret waited.
Vanessa’s fingers tightened around the tissue.
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why did you?”
Vanessa looked toward Ethan.
He said nothing.
“I thought you were trespassing.”
“That explains why you wanted me removed.”
Margaret leaned back.
“It doesn’t explain why you enjoyed it.”
Vanessa’s eyes snapped to hers.
“I didn’t.”
“You laughed.”
“I was nervous.”
“No.”
Margaret’s voice remained quiet.
“You weren’t.”
Ethan shifted beside the fireplace.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“This isn’t a deposition.”
“No.”
Margaret looked at him.
“A deposition would be easier.”
He exhaled.
Vanessa rubbed her forehead.
“You came here to trap me.”
“Yes.”
The bluntness startled all three of them.
Margaret set the coffee on the side table.
“That was wrong.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“You’re admitting that?”
“I’m not interested in being correct every minute.”
Ethan gave a short, humorless laugh.
“That would be new.”
Margaret looked at him.
There was years of irritation inside the sentence.
It had very little to do with Vanessa.
“Fair,” she said.
Ethan’s expression shifted, almost imperceptibly.
Vanessa looked between them.
“You’ve hated me from the beginning.”
Margaret shook her head.
“I barely knew you from the beginning.”
“You had people check me out.”
“I have security reviews done on anyone who gains access to family financial structures.”
“That sounds nicer than spying.”
“It isn’t especially nice.”
Ethan crossed his arms.
“I told her that.”
Vanessa turned toward him.
“You knew?”
“I knew about the standard background review.”
Her face hardened.
“You told me your family didn’t care about my family’s money.”
“We don’t.”
“Then why investigate us?”
“Because my mother was kidnapped for eleven hours when I was sixteen.”
The room went still.
Vanessa blinked.
Margaret looked at the floor.
Ethan almost never said it plainly.
Most people in their current social circle knew the sanitized version.
A security incident.
An extortion attempt.
A family emergency from decades earlier.
Not the motel room outside Murfreesboro.
Not the duct tape.
Not the man who kept apologizing while his brother made phone calls.
Not Ethan sitting at home with his father, waiting to learn whether his mother would come back.
Vanessa’s anger faltered.
“I didn’t know.”
May you like
“I know,” Ethan said.
Margaret touched the seam of the chef’s jacket.
