Chương 2
Adrian looked at Celeste.
Mara continued, more quietly.
“She said no one would ever believe the help.”
The silence afterward lasted long enough for the heating vent to click behind the sofa.
One of the security men looked at the floor.
Celeste set Mara’s handbag down.
Very carefully.
“You have absolutely no idea what you’re involving yourself in.”
“I think she has a better idea than you hoped,” Evelyn said.
Celeste turned on her. “You’ve never liked me.”
“That has nothing to do with the camera.”
“You went looking for this.”
“Yes.”
The directness seemed to catch Celeste off guard.
Evelyn nodded toward the necklace without touching it.
“I was told Eleanor’s necklace was missing this afternoon. Before anyone accused anybody, I asked security to review access around the dressing room and staff areas. That is what sensible people do when an object disappears.”
Celeste looked toward Adrian. “You let her investigate me?”
“I didn’t know she was investigating anyone.”
“Exactly.”
“Celeste.”
She flinched at his tone.
It was not loud. Adrian almost never got loud. Mara had once watched him dismiss a contractor who had overbilled him by several thousand dollars in the same voice he used to ask for coffee. The quieter he became, the more everyone around him seemed to speak carefully.
He looked at the diamonds.
Then at the television.
Then back at Celeste.
“Why?”
Celeste’s mouth tightened.
Nobody answered for her.
For the first time since the handbag hit the table, Mara noticed her own things scattered between crystal glasses and dinner napkins. Her wallet had fallen open. Her driver’s license was visible. So was the photograph tucked behind it, a stupid little strip from a county fair booth three summers ago in which Mara and her roommate were both cross-eyed from laughing.
She reached over and closed the wallet.
The ordinary motion made her hands tremble harder.
Adrian saw.
His face changed.
“Mara.”
She did not look at him.
“Mara, I’m sorry.”
Celeste laughed once.
The sound was small and ugly.
“Oh, now you’re sorry.”
Adrian turned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re standing there performing decency because your aunt found a recording.”
“Performing?”
“You didn’t trust her ten minutes ago.”
Mara looked up.
Celeste had found the one sentence nobody in the room wanted.
Adrian’s eyes remained on Celeste, but his jaw shifted.
She pressed the advantage.
“If Evelyn hadn’t turned on that television, what would you have done?”
Adrian did not answer quickly enough.
Mara wished he had.
Celeste nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Evelyn rose.
At seventy-two, she was several inches shorter than Celeste, but nobody watching them would have guessed which woman held the room.
“Martin,” she said to the nearer security guard, “please make sure Ms. Mercer leaves with only the belongings she arrived with. Daniel, call the security supervisor and tell him no footage from today is to be overwritten.”
Both men moved immediately.
Celeste stepped backward.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
She looked at Adrian.
“We’re getting married in six weeks.”
The sentence hung there.
Mara had spent part of the morning directing florists to rooms for a wedding-planning dinner that was now ending with security at the doors.
Adrian’s face went blank in a way Mara had learned meant the opposite of blankness.
“No,” he said. “We’re not.”
Celeste stared at him.
Something in her posture broke.
Not dramatically. Her shoulders lowered by perhaps half an inch.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Because of her?”
Mara’s stomach tightened.
Adrian looked at Celeste for a long time.
“Because of you.”
Celeste’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
That almost made Mara feel sorry for her.
Almost.
Then Celeste looked at Mara again.
“You should ask her what else she took from Eleanor’s study.”
Mara froze.
Adrian’s attention snapped back to her.
Celeste smiled without pleasure.
“There. See? She didn’t tell you everything.”
“That’s enough,” Evelyn said.
“No, it isn’t.”
Mara’s pulse hammered.
There had been a box.
Not stolen.
Not hidden.
But Celeste knew about it.
Mara had carried the box out of Eleanor’s study two weeks earlier after a maintenance worker discovered moisture behind the built-in shelving. The estate manager had told her to move anything vulnerable until the wall could be opened.
Most of the contents had looked worthless: old calendars, paper receipts, holiday cards, handwritten lists, menus from charity dinners, several magazines with pages folded down.
A red leather appointment book had been inside.
So had a thick folder of printed invoices.
Mara had taken the box to Evelyn instead of the storage room because she recognized Eleanor’s handwriting on several envelopes and thought family papers should not end up mixed with cleaning supplies.
She had not mentioned it because it had not seemed important.
Until now.
“I didn’t take anything,” Mara said.
Celeste’s smile sharpened.
“But you removed a box.”
“Under instructions.”
“Where is it?”
Evelyn said, “With me.”
Everyone looked at her.
Evelyn folded her arms.
“I have it.”
Celeste went completely still.
There it was again.
Fear.
Different this time.
Adrian saw it too.
“What is in that box?”
Evelyn’s eyes stayed on Celeste.
“I don’t know yet.”
Celeste recovered fast.
“You people are unbelievable.”
She picked up her small satin clutch from the sofa.
Daniel held out a hand.
“I’ll carry that, ma’am.”
“I can carry my own purse.”
“I’m sure you can.”
Celeste looked at Adrian one last time.
Mara expected begging. Anger. Maybe some polished explanation about misunderstanding and grief and betrayal.
Instead Celeste said, “Your mother was not the woman you’ve turned her into.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Leave.”
This time she did.
The front door closed behind her with almost no sound.
For several seconds, the only thing moving in the room was the security footage still looping above the fireplace.
Celeste entering.
Celeste glancing behind her.
Celeste slipping the necklace into Mara’s apron.
Celeste walking away.
Again.
Again.
Again.
May you like
Evelyn picked up the remote and turned the television off.
The room became a room again.
