Chương 2
Victoria looked down at it.
“No. It isn’t.”
Mr. Patel hesitated.
Rachel almost admired him for it.
“Mrs. Hale, the consignment agreement—”
“Withdraw it.”
“I’m not authorized to—”
“I am.”
“That may be true, but the auction house will still need—”
Victoria’s stare stopped him.
Rachel saw the old Victoria then. Not the grieving woman holding the locket. The woman who had spent most of her life learning that enough money could turn resistance into procedure.
Daniel turned.
“We’re leaving.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Daniel.”
“We’re taking Lily home.”
He crouched beside Lily and held out his hand.
“Come on, bug.”
Lily did not take it immediately.
“Are you mad at Mommy?”
Daniel looked at Rachel.
“Yes.”
Rachel swallowed.
Daniel returned his attention to Lily.
“But I’m not mad at you.”
“Are you mad at me because I touched the necklace?”
“No.”
“Is the necklace expensive?”
A laugh escaped one of the nearby guests before the woman could stop herself.
Victoria looked toward her.
The woman lowered her head.
Daniel took Lily’s hand.
“I have no idea.”
“It is,” Victoria said.
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“That wasn’t an invitation.”
Victoria seemed about to answer.
Then Lily said, “Why did you hit me?”
Everything changed again.
Victoria looked at the child.
Her authority disappeared from her face.
“I shouldn’t have.”
Lily waited.
Victoria understood.
“I’m sorry.”
Lily gave a small nod, though she did not move closer.
Daniel led her toward the coat check.
Rachel started after them.
Victoria said, “If you walk out that door without telling me what happened to Evelyn’s child, I will find out another way.”
Rachel stopped.
There it was.
The threat she had spent six years preparing herself to hear.
The strange thing was that it no longer frightened her as much as Daniel’s back disappearing through the gallery.
She turned.
“You already know what happened.”
Victoria looked toward Lily.
“No. I know you have a little girl who is the right age.”
Rachel said nothing.
Victoria opened the locket.
For the first time Rachel saw what Lily had seen.
Her own face.
Not the face she had now.
She had been twenty-five in the photograph. Her hair had been shorter then. She was sitting on the railing outside Evelyn’s apartment in Brooklyn, laughing at something beyond the edge of the frame.
Rachel knew the photograph.
She had taken the original with Evelyn’s phone.
What she had never known was that Evelyn had printed it.
Victoria touched the tiny image with her thumb.
“She carried this the day she died.”
Rachel’s composure nearly failed.
Victoria noticed.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“My daughter kept your photograph inside something she wore against her heart.”
“Victoria—”
“What were you to her?”
Rachel glanced toward the doorway.
Daniel was gone.
Lily was gone.
For six years, Rachel had told herself that keeping Evelyn’s last secrets was a form of loyalty.
Now it felt very much like cowardice.
“I loved her.”
Victoria’s face did not change.
Rachel continued.
“And she loved me.”
Somewhere across the gallery, a microphone came alive.
A man announced that the auction would begin shortly.
Neither woman moved.
Victoria looked down at the photograph again.
When she spoke, her voice had become quieter.
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
“My daughter lived six blocks from me.”
“I know.”
“She had dinner in my apartment every Sunday.”
“I know.”
“And neither of you thought I deserved to know.”
Rachel’s sympathy vanished for a moment.
“That isn’t what happened.”
“Then what happened?”
“You told her what happened.”
Victoria stared at her.
Rachel had not planned to say it like that.
Maybe there was no good way.
“Evelyn told you about me once.”
Victoria’s brows drew together.
“No.”
“She didn’t use my name. She said she was seeing a woman.”
Something moved behind Victoria’s eyes.
Rachel watched recognition arrive.
It was slow.
Painfully slow.
“The summer house,” Victoria said.
Rachel said nothing.
Victoria looked away.
Years earlier, Evelyn had tried to tell her mother during a weekend in Southampton. Victoria had responded with a sentence Evelyn could later repeat word for word.
You are thirty-one years old. You are exhausted and sick and terrified, and you are confusing dependence with love.
Victoria leaned against the glass case.
“I didn’t know it was you.”
“That was the point.”
“And the baby?”
Rachel looked toward the doorway again.
“I have to go to my family.”
Victoria caught the word.
“Your family.”
“Yes.”
“That child may be my family.”
Rachel’s anger came quickly.
“She is not a claim.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
“You don’t have to.”
Victoria’s fingers closed around the locket.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Do not follow us tonight.”
Victoria almost smiled.
It was not amusement.
“You’ve had six years to prepare your version of this story. I’ve had six minutes.”
“And Lily has had six years believing the adults around her are safe. I’m not destroying that because you want answers before midnight.”
“You destroyed it already.”
Rachel looked toward the door through which her husband and daughter had disappeared.
“Yes,” she said.
That answer seemed to unsettle Victoria more than denial would have.
Rachel left.
Outside the museum, the rain had thickened.
The doorman held an umbrella over Lily while Daniel tried to get a rideshare app to refresh on his phone. His tuxedo jacket was already dark at the shoulders.
Rachel stepped beneath the awning.
Daniel did not look at her.
“I can explain.”
“That sentence should be illegal.”
“Daniel.”
“Not here.”
Lily was watching them.
Rachel nodded.
Daniel found a car three minutes away.
Lily occupied the time by hopping over the narrow streams of water running along the curb. She still had no real understanding of what had happened. Rachel envied her for perhaps thirty seconds, then hated herself for the envy.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Can dead people own necklaces?”
Daniel put his phone away.
“No.”
“Then why did that lady say it belonged to her daughter?”
“It used to.”
May you like
“Where is her daughter?”
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
