Chương 3
Margaret smiled faintly.
“That’s why your water is disappearing.”
Clara looked at the cup.
It was empty.
Margaret had used it.
For some reason this made Clara laugh.
A short, exhausted sound.
Margaret smiled too.
Across the room Lucas glanced over.
Clara stopped.
Margaret leaned toward her.
“He worries when I laugh after things happen.”
“Why?”
“He thinks it means I’m in shock.”
“Are you?”
“Probably.”
Clara looked down at the black folder.
“Me too.”
The training room had laminated posters on the wall about workplace injuries and guest privacy. Someone had left three dry-erase markers on the ledge beneath the whiteboard, all blue. The air-conditioning was too cold.
Ordinary things.
Clara concentrated on them because the alternative was thinking about rent, Victoria’s promise to fire her, Victor’s face, Lucas’s sentence, and the attorney who had handed hotel directives to a maid as if that were something attorneys did every Friday night.
Rebecca ended her conversation with Lucas and sat across from Clara.
“Mr. Moretti overstated your legal authority.”
Lucas looked at her.
Rebecca ignored him.
Clara said, “Thank you.”
“For clarity, not comfort.”
“I’ll take clarity.”
“You are not the owner. You are not the general manager. You cannot hire or fire anyone. You cannot sign contracts. You cannot access guest records or company accounts.”
“Excellent.”
Margaret covered a smile with one hand.
Rebecca continued.
“The Halcyon entities have been under a confidential forbearance agreement with Moretti Capital for four months. Tonight was the deadline for a liquidity certification. We received information this afternoon indicating the certification may have been materially inaccurate.”
Clara glanced toward Daniel’s empty chair.
“From the CFO?”
“I can’t discuss the source.”
“So what does this have to do with me?”
“The agreement permits Moretti to require enhanced operational oversight after certain defaults. A restructuring firm will assume defined transition functions tomorrow morning. Until then, the hotel remains under existing management, subject to restrictions.”
Clara looked at Lucas.
“So the hotel does not answer to me.”
“No,” Rebecca said.
Lucas spoke.
“Tonight, security does.”
Rebecca paused.
“Within the limited safety directive, yes.”
“And department heads were told not to retaliate against her or anyone who witnessed the incident.”
“Yes.”
Clara folded her arms.
“That’s different from what you said upstairs.”
Lucas met her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why did you say it?”
He did not answer immediately.
For the first time she saw uncertainty in him.
Not fear.
Something more irritating.
Regret.
“My mother had just been humiliated,” he said. “You were about to be removed for stopping it. Victor was still trying to control the room. I wanted that control gone.”
“So you used me.”
Margaret turned her head toward her son.
Lucas’s jaw shifted once.
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked down at her notes.
Clara appreciated that.
She stood.
“I want to go home.”
Lucas nodded.
“I’ll have a car take you.”
“No.”
“It’s almost eleven.”
“I have a car.”
Margaret touched Clara’s sleeve.
“Please let somebody drive you.”
Clara looked at her.
The old woman’s expression had changed since the ballroom. The confusion was gone. What remained was embarrassment, and something Clara recognized more readily: the need to make one small thing right after a larger thing had gone wrong.
“Okay,” Clara said.
Lucas reached for his phone.
“Not him,” Clara said.
Margaret laughed again.
This time Lucas did not look worried.
Rebecca arranged a hotel sedan.
Clara left through the employee entrance wearing the same uniform.
Outside, three reporters were already waiting.
She stopped so abruptly the security guard behind her nearly walked into her.
“Clara!”
“Clara Bennett?”
“Were you fired tonight?”
“Did Lucas Moretti give you control of the Halcyon Grand?”
“Did Victoria Halcyon assault the woman?”
“Is Margaret Moretti ill?”
Clara turned back inside.
The guard locked the door.
Her phone had forty-seven missed notifications.
By the time she reached her apartment, it had more than three hundred.
Her roommate, Janelle Price, opened the door before Clara put her key in.
Janelle worked nights as a respiratory therapist and should have been at the hospital. She was wearing sweatpants, one sock, and the expression of someone watching a plane land in the street.
“What did you do?”
Clara leaned against the door.
“Why is everybody asking me that?”
“Because you’re on CNN.”
Clara closed her eyes.
“Please tell me you’re lying.”
“I would never lie about CNN. Other things, yes.”
Janelle held up her phone.
Clara watched herself catch Victoria’s wrist.
The angle came from somewhere behind the champagne station. It showed Margaret’s recoil. It showed Victoria’s mouth form the word filthy. It showed the purse hitting the floor.
The clip cut just after Clara said, No, it doesn’t.
The caption read:
MAID STOPS BILLIONAIRE HOTEL HEIRESS FROM SLAPPING ELDERLY WOMAN—THEN SON REVEALS HE CONTROLS FAMILY’S DEBT.
Clara handed the phone back.
“I hate every word in that sentence.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“I was scared.”
“You can be scared and still do something.”
Clara looked at her.
“Don’t make this inspirational.”
Janelle pointed toward the kitchen.
“I bought cereal.”
That was better.
Clara ate two bowls standing at the counter.
At 1:18 a.m., her manager texted her.
DO NOT COME IN UNTIL HR CONTACTS YOU.
At 1:22, another message appeared.
PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK TO MEDIA.
At 1:31, a third arrived from an unknown number.
You should have minded your business.
Clara stared at it.
Then another.
Gold-digging bitch.
Then another.
You’re brave. Thank you.
Then one offering her a sponsorship for luxury handbags.
She shut off the phone.
Janelle was watching her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“You’re shaking.”
Clara looked down.
She was.
The next morning, she woke on the couch at 8:07 with the television muted and her uniform still on.
Janelle had placed a blanket over her.
There was coffee on the counter and a note.
DON’T READ COMMENTS.
Beneath it, in smaller letters:
YOU’RE GOING TO READ COMMENTS.
DON’T REPLY.
May you like
Clara read comments for twenty minutes.
By the end she had been called courageous, manipulative, classless, beautiful, ugly, a communist, a capitalist plant, a saint, an actress, and—by one account with a cartoon frog as its profile picture—the future CEO of America.
