Chương 8
Margaret sat.
It was the first time Claire had ever seen her choose a chair because she appeared to need one.
“It could make the review harder. Delay it. Create uncertainty about authenticity if only copies emerge.”
“Are there copies?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“With outside counsel.”
Michael stared at her.
“Then why steal the original?”
“Because originals matter.”
Torres said, “And because people do desperate things when they don’t know what others have.”
Margaret looked at her.
“Yes.”
Daniel entered.
“We found Celia.”
Michael stood.
“Where?”
Daniel’s expression was strange.
“Hospital.”
Margaret went pale.
“What happened?”
“Nothing violent. She checked herself into the emergency department at St. Vincent’s around seven twenty. Chest pain.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes. Stable, as far as we’ve been told.”
Torres frowned.
“How did she get there if her car is here?”
“Rideshare receipt. Pickup at six fifty-eight from the north gate.”
Margaret said, “The north gate camera?”
“Offline from six thirty-two to seven eleven.”
Michael looked at Daniel.
“Why?”
“We’re checking.”
Daniel’s embarrassment was obvious.
Michael did not attack him for it.
That surprised Claire.
Torres asked, “Could Celia physically have been the person Ethan saw?”
Daniel nodded. “Timeline fits.”
Margaret stood again.
“I want to speak to her.”
Torres said, “Not yet.”
“She has worked for me for nineteen years.”
“Which makes it more important that you do not call her before I do.”
Margaret’s lips compressed.
Michael watched her.
“You still don’t believe it.”
“I believe facts.”
“You believe people until believing them becomes embarrassing.”
Margaret turned.
“That is rich coming from you.”
Michael’s face changed.
Claire looked down.
This was no longer a conversation strangers should hear.
Michael said, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You dismissed your son’s account until Claire confirmed part of it.”
Michael went still.
Margaret continued. “You are angry with me because it is easier than admitting you did exactly what everyone else in this house did this morning.”
Ethan stared at his father.
Margaret looked at him too.
“We assumed the least convenient person was mistaken.”
Michael did not answer.
The boy slid down from the sofa.
“I want pancakes.”
Every adult looked at him.
Ethan shrugged.
“I’m hungry.”
Claire almost loved him for it.
Torres said, “That might be the most reasonable thing anyone has said in twenty minutes.”
Michael rubbed his eyes.
“Claire?”
“I’ll take him.”
Margaret said, “I’ll come.”
Michael looked at her.
Margaret added, “I have not eaten.”
They walked to the breakfast room together.
Nobody spoke for most of the way.
The spilled water in the foyer had been cleaned now, but the orange bucket remained where Daniel had marked its original position with tape. The pale morning had strengthened into hard summer light. Outside the tall windows, one groundskeeper pushed a wheelbarrow toward the tool shed.
Ethan stopped beside the taped square where the shoe had been.
“Did I ruin the floor?”
“No,” Claire said.
“The bucket hit hard.”
“It survived.”
“Grandma?”
Margaret looked at the faint scuff near the stair base.
“It can be polished.”
Ethan nodded.
After several steps, Margaret said, “And if it could not, the floor would still be less important than what you stopped Claire from cleaning.”
Claire glanced at her.
Margaret did not return the look.
In the breakfast room, Ethan ate four pancakes.
Margaret ate half a piece of toast.
Claire drank coffee she had reheated twice and still let grow cold.
The quiet felt strange after the morning’s intensity.
Ethan pushed a blueberry around his plate.
“Did Celia steal your dress?”
Margaret spread a small amount of marmalade onto the corner of her toast.
“We don’t know.”
“She wore your hair.”
“We don’t know that either.”
“The hair was in your room.”
“Yes.”
“Do you like Celia?”
Margaret stopped spreading marmalade.
“That is a complicated question.”
“I like Claire.”
Claire looked up.
“Thank you.”
“She makes grilled cheese better than Dad.”
Michael was not in the room, but Claire still lowered her voice.
“That is not difficult.”
Ethan smiled.
Margaret looked at Claire.
“You use too much butter.”
“That’s why it’s better.”
Margaret considered that.
“I will concede the point.”
For a minute, they were simply three people eating breakfast badly.
Then Margaret put down her knife.
“I hired Celia when Michael was twenty-one.”
Ethan continued chewing.
Claire did not interrupt.
“She had been working for a law firm I used. She was extraordinarily organized and entirely unimpressed by money, which I found refreshing.”
“Was she poor?” Ethan asked.
Margaret’s eyes shifted.
“I don’t know.”
“You worked with her nineteen years and don’t know?”
Claire bit the inside of her cheek.
Margaret stared at the boy.
“No,” she said finally. “I suppose I don’t.”
Ethan ate another blueberry.
“Maybe she knows if you’re poor.”
Margaret looked at Claire.
Claire lifted her coffee.
“I’m staying out of this.”
For the first time that morning, Margaret laughed.
It was a small sound.
Almost rusty.
Then she looked down at her toast.
“When someone works for you a long time, it becomes easy to confuse knowing their efficiency with knowing them.”
Claire thought of the nineteen years.
“How much access did she have?”
“Enough.”
“To the safe?”
“No. Not the combination.”
“Could she have learned it?”
Margaret did not answer.
Ethan said, “People watch.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Yes.”
He pointed his fork at her.
“That’s what I did.”
The detective returned before eleven.
Celia Ward had agreed to speak from the hospital after her physician cleared her.
Torres did not allow Margaret in the first conversation.
Michael went because Celia asked for him.
That surprised everyone.
Claire remained at the mansion with Ethan and Margaret.
Two hours passed.
Then three.
The donor reception was canceled.
Foundation staff began making calls.
A caterer packed trays back into refrigerated vans. Florists removed arrangements that had cost more than Claire’s monthly rent. Margaret stood in the foyer watching a worker carry away six-foot branches of white orchids.
“You can leave,” she told Claire.
May you like
Claire looked at Ethan.
He was sitting halfway up the staircase with his black toy truck, rolling it carefully along the edge of a tread.
