Chương 6
Daniel looked at her.
“No. Not the way I told myself they did.”
Maya folded the letter carefully.
“What did Mom do?”
“She called me a coward.”
Maya smiled despite herself.
“That sounds right.”
Daniel nodded.
“She left the money on my desk.”
“You said you refused it.”
“I mailed it back.”
“And?”
“She mailed it back again.”
Maya looked at him.
Daniel almost smiled.
“I sent it back.”
“How many times?”
“Four.”
Victoria covered her mouth.
Maya stared at her.
Victoria was trying not to laugh.
It was inappropriate.
It was also suddenly very funny.
Maya laughed first.
A short, exhausted sound.
Victoria joined her.
Even Daniel smiled.
For ten strange seconds, the three of them sat around the polished table laughing about a dead woman mailing thirty-two thousand dollars back and forth with a multimillionaire because neither would let the other win.
Then Maya stopped.
The grief returned without warning.
“What happened to the money?”
Daniel’s smile vanished.
“Your mother donated it.”
“To what?”
“A legal aid organization in Boston.”
Maya looked down.
Of course she had.
“Did you know she got cancer?”
“Yes.”
“Did you offer to help?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Yes.”
Maya’s head came up.
“When?”
“2016.”
“She never told me.”
“She refused.”
“How much?”
“I offered to cover whatever insurance didn’t.”
Maya stared.
“And she said no?”
“She told my assistant that if I sent one dollar, she would donate that too.”
Maya pressed the napkin against her mouth.
This time the laugh and the tears arrived together.
Victoria looked at Daniel.
“Did you ever speak to her again?”
“No.”
“So the last time you saw Elena was 2007.”
“Yes.”
“And the last thing she asked was for you to tell the truth.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
Victoria stood.
She walked to the window.
Her reflection hovered against the black ocean.
Maya watched her.
Something had changed in Victoria during the conversation. The shock was still there, but another injury had moved beneath it.
Not Elena.
Not Maya.
Something older.
Daniel saw it too.
“Victoria.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m trying very hard not to make this about me.”
Maya said quietly, “You’re his wife. Some of it is about you.”
Victoria looked at her through the reflection.
“That’s generous.”
“It isn’t.”
Victoria turned.
“When Daniel and I married, there was a trust agreement.”
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“Don’t.”
Victoria smiled without humor.
“There it is again.”
Maya looked between them.
Victoria continued.
“I signed a prenuptial agreement. Very standard. Very civilized. Daniel disclosed lawsuits, business liabilities, previous relationships, financial obligations. There was a clause requiring disclosure of anything material that could create reputational or legal risk for the Whitmore Foundation.”
Daniel said, “This was twenty-four years ago.”
“And you knew it could matter.”
“It was resolved.”
“No. It was buried.”
Maya looked at the envelope.
“Why bring it out now?”
Daniel did not answer.
Victoria did.
“Because of tomorrow.”
Maya frowned.
“What’s tomorrow?”
Victoria looked at Daniel.
“The foundation board votes on whether to accept a seventy-five-million-dollar donation.”
Maya waited.
“From who?”
“Whitmore Marine.”
Maya understood slowly.
Daniel controlled Whitmore Marine.
Victoria chaired the foundation.
Daniel said, “The donation has nothing to do with this.”
Victoria turned on him.
“It has everything to do with this.”
“It’s charitable funding.”
“It also puts your name on the new medical center.”
Maya stared at him.
“Medical center?”
Victoria nodded.
“A nursing and rehabilitation center.”
The irony was so ugly nobody needed to point it out.
Maya looked at Daniel.
“Is that why you investigated me?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not guilt.
Risk.
At least partly.
“You thought I might expose you before the vote.”
“I didn’t know what you had.”
“So you brought me to dinner to intimidate me.”
“I brought the documents because I decided you deserved them.”
“And then hit the tray out of my hands.”
Daniel looked ashamed.
It was not enough.
But it was something.
“I lost my temper.”
Maya’s voice hardened.
“Don’t make it small.”
“I’m not.”
“You hit something I was holding because I wouldn’t answer you the way you wanted.”
“Yes.”
“You’re fifty-eight years old.”
“I know.”
“You’re my employer.”
“I know.”
“You scared me.”
Daniel looked at her.
For once his authority disappeared entirely.
“I know.”
“No. You know now because I said it. Before that, you were probably telling yourself you hit a tray.”
Daniel did not answer.
Victoria looked at Maya.
Something passed between the two women.
Not friendship.
Not yet.
Recognition, perhaps.
Victoria said, “You’re right.”
Daniel looked at his wife.
She ignored him.
Maya folded Elena’s letter again.
“I want to call my aunt.”
Daniel nodded.
Maya stood.
“I’m doing it here.”
He nodded again.
She dialed Ruth.
It was nearly eleven at night.
Ruth answered on the fourth ring.
“Maya?”
Her voice was thick with sleep.
Maya closed her eyes.
“Hey, Auntie.”
“What happened?”
“Why do you always assume something happened?”
“Because you never call me at eleven unless something happened.”
Maya looked at Daniel.
Victoria sat silently.
“I’m with Daniel Whitmore.”
Nothing came through the phone.
“Auntie?”
Ruth breathed in.
“Oh.”
Maya’s anger returned.
“You knew.”
“Maya—”
“You knew I took this yacht job.”
“I knew.”
“And you knew whose yacht it was.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
A long silence.
“Because you’re twenty-four.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is when you raise somebody stubborn.”
Maya almost smiled.
Almost.
“Did Mom make you promise not to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she was ashamed.”
“Of what he did?”
“No.”
Maya sat.
Ruth continued.
“She was ashamed she took the money.”
Maya looked at Daniel.
He looked away.
“She was scared,” Maya said.
“Yes.”
“She was protecting you.”
“Yes.”
“Then why was she ashamed?”
“Because your mother could forgive everybody except herself.”
Maya lowered her head.
That was true.
Painfully true.
Ruth asked, “Is he there?”
“Yes.”
“Put me on speaker.”
Maya did.
Ruth’s voice filled the salon.
“Daniel?”
“Hello, Ruth.”
May you like
“Don’t hello me like we’re at church.”
Victoria covered her mouth.
