Part 4
Jonas rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”
When he left, Mara removed her remaining shoe and placed it beside the cracked one. Theo looked down at her stockinged feet.
“You’re shorter.”
“A little.”
“You should stay like that when you talk to Inspector Keller.”
Despite himself, he almost smiled.
Mara did not. Smiling would have felt like asking him to forgive her before she had earned it.
A hotel employee brought tea neither of them had requested. The cup for Theo had a paper sleeve printed with a cartoon ibex in a scarf. It looked as though it belonged to a different building.
He held the warm cup between both hands without drinking.
Mara’s phone vibrated twice in her coat. She ignored it.
On the third vibration, Theo said, “You can check.”
“I’m with you.”
“You’ll keep wondering.”
He knew her habits too well.
She took out the phone.
The first message was from her bureau director in New York.
CALL ME BEFORE YOU SPEAK TO ANYONE.
The second was from Sabine Favre.
CONSERVATORY FOOTAGE HAS A NINETY-FOUR-SECOND GAP.
The third was from an unknown number.
You brought a child to pressure witnesses. Leave tonight, or everyone will know.
Mara read it twice.
Theo studied her face.
“Bad?”
“Unpleasant.”
“Work unpleasant or real unpleasant?”
She locked the screen. “Both.”
“Are we leaving?”
She should have said yes.
A responsible guardian would have packed their bags, taken the first car down the mountain, and let Jonas proceed without her. The recorder had captured Adrian’s remark. The brass plate was in police custody. Her presence was no longer essential to preserving either.
But the ninety-four-second gap changed the case.
The missing interval began two minutes before the box fell.
Someone with access to the hotel’s security system had removed the clearest record of what happened near Theo.
Mara looked at her nephew’s small hands around the cup.
“We’re leaving the gala,” she said.
“That’s not the same as leaving the hotel.”
“No.”
“Work answer.”
“Yes.”
He nodded, disappointed but not surprised.
The suite assigned to them had two bedrooms, a sitting room, and a balcony buried beneath fresh snow. The hotel had filled a silver bowl with pears, though none were ripe. Theo pressed one with his thumb and frowned at it.
“Rich people fruit is hard.”
Mara set their bags on the bed.
“Do not bruise all of them.”
“I’m testing.”
“You tested four.”
“The results were consistent.”
She took off her burgundy coat dress and changed into black trousers and a cream sweater. Her low bun had loosened near one ear. She pinned it again while Theo sat cross-legged on the carpet and untied his shoes.
He placed the polished black shoes side by side.
“Can I wear sneakers tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Even if there are rich people?”
“Especially then.”
He looked toward the closed bedroom door.
“Did the music box sound like Mom’s?”
Mara’s hand stopped near her hair.
Rachel had owned a cheap wooden music box purchased from an airport gift shop during a delayed flight. Its painted ballerina leaned slightly to one side, and the tune dragged on the fourth note. Theo had been five when his mother died. He remembered the box more clearly than Mara did.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“It did a little.”
“That’s why you touched it?”
He nodded.
Mara sat on the edge of the bed.
Theo waited for her to tell him touching valuable things was wrong. His shoulders had already arranged themselves beneath the expected correction.
“Come here.”
He crossed the carpet slowly.
She took his hands.
“You are allowed to miss her in inconvenient places.”
His eyes filled again.
“I didn’t want everybody to look.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t going to play it.”
“I know.”
“It moved before I touched it. I think. Maybe it didn’t. I keep seeing it different.”
“That happens when you’re scared.”
“What if I did break it and my brain is lying?”
“Then we would deal with what happened. Not with what Adrian Haldner decided you were.”
Theo stared at their joined hands.
“What are people like us?”
Mara had been waiting for the question since the conservatory.
She could have told him Adrian meant people without old money, people who had entered by professional invitation instead of family name, people whose luggage had airline tags and whose formal clothes came out of garment bags rather than hotel wardrobes.
She suspected Adrian had meant something less precise and more poisonous. Theo’s father had been Puerto Rican. His skin was as fair as Mara’s, but his surname, when used, was Bell-Rivera. Adrian might have read class, ethnicity, childhood grief, or merely vulnerability. Cruelty often chose its target first and invented its category later.
“People he believes he can embarrass safely,” Mara said.
“Can he?”
“He tried.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No. He cannot do it safely.”
Theo considered this, then climbed onto the bed and lay facing the wall.
Mara called her director from the sitting room.
Evelyn Price answered on the first ring.
“What happened?”
Mara told her.
Evelyn did not interrupt until Mara reached the badge.
“You exposed your credentials in the middle of the operation.”
“He was intimidating Theo.”
“You brought Theo into the operation.”
“I brought him to a public charity auction where I was scheduled to observe.”
“You brought an eight-year-old to a target location.”
“The hotel approved him as my guest. Jonas approved the observation plan.”
“Jonas does not make guardianship decisions for you.”
Mara looked through the doorway. Theo’s body was still beneath the white duvet.
“No,” she said.
Evelyn’s voice softened, which made Mara feel worse.
“Is he hurt?”
“No.”
“Then take the mercy offered to you and get him off that mountain.”
“The security feed was altered.”
A pause.
“How much?”
“Ninety-four seconds.”
“Before or after the break?”
“Before.”
“Local authorities have it?”
“Yes.”
“And your recording?”
“Still running.”
May you like
“Upload it to the secure server now.”
Mara opened her laptop. “The box carried a Sloan inventory plate.”
