Chương 8
Mara looked at her.
“You shouldn’t need a woman to frame two housekeepers before deciding that.”
Evelyn accepted the hit.
“No.”
Mara put the peppermints into her pocket.
“I don’t want to spend every day here wondering if somebody thinks I’m looking at the silver too long.”
“No one does.”
“That isn’t true.”
Evelyn’s mouth opened.
Mara raised a hand.
“Not because they’re bad people. Because that’s how this works.”
Evelyn looked at the empty locker.
“Will you let Adrian give you a reference?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll be relieved.”
“That isn’t why.”
“I know.”
Mara picked up the tote.
Evelyn stepped aside.
In the hallway, Mara paused.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Why did you check the cameras so fast that night?”
Evelyn looked toward the stairs.
“I saw Celeste near the staff room.”
“When?”
“About twenty minutes before dinner.”
“Doing what?”
“Nothing.”
Mara waited.
“That was what bothered me,” Evelyn said. “She never went near the staff room unless she wanted something.”
“So you suspected her.”
“I suspected something.”
“Would you have checked if it had been Claire?”
The question landed harder than Mara intended.
Evelyn looked at her.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I don’t think I would have.”
Mara nodded.
There was no clean response to that.
Evelyn reached into her pocket.
“I kept one thing from the box.”
Mara stiffened.
Evelyn held out an envelope.
It had Mara’s name on it.
The handwriting belonged to Eleanor.
Mara stared.
“When?”
“A month before she died, I think.”
“Why didn’t she give it to me?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara took the envelope.
It was unsealed.
“You read it?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“I considered it.”
Mara almost smiled.
“That sounds more like you.”
Evelyn’s mouth twitched.
Mara tucked the envelope into her tote without opening it.
For two days she left it there.
That bothered Tessa.
“You’re not going to read a letter from a dead woman?”
“Eventually.”
“What if it says where treasure is?”
“It doesn’t.”
“What if it says you were secretly her favorite?”
“Then she had terrible judgment.”
Tessa watched her make grilled cheese.
“You’re scared.”
“No.”
“You’re burning the bread.”
Mara looked down.
She was.
She turned off the stove.
The letter waited until Sunday morning.
Eleanor had written only half a page.
Mara,
You were right about the pantry shelves. I hate admitting that in writing because it gives you evidence.
I have also noticed that you apologize before disagreeing. Stop doing that. People who employ you are buying your work, not your agreement.
If I am unpleasant this week, blame the medication at least fifty percent and my personality the rest.
Thank you for treating my house like a place people live rather than a museum where they happen to sleep.
E.
Mara read it twice.
Then she folded it.
No secret.
No clue.
No dramatic last message about Celeste.
Just Eleanor being Eleanor.
That almost broke her.
She cried for three minutes at the kitchen table while Tessa pretended not to notice and aggressively cleaned the toaster.
Then Mara washed her face and went to buy groceries.
A month later, Celeste asked to meet.
The request came through attorneys.
By then Mara had found a lawyer of her own, paid partly through an employment advocacy organization and partly from savings she had intended for a used car.
Her lawyer, Dana Price, disliked almost everyone equally and considered that a professional strength.
“You don’t have to meet her,” Dana said.
“I know.”
“She can communicate through counsel.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you considering it?”
Mara looked at the conference-room carpet.
It had a pattern of blue squares designed, apparently, to make human suffering easier to vacuum.
“Because I want to hear what she says when she can’t dump my bag on a table.”
Dana nodded.
“That is not a legal reason.”
“I know.”
“It is, however, a human one.”
They agreed to a controlled meeting.
Celeste arrived in a navy dress instead of champagne satin.
Her hair was down.
Mara had never seen it that way.
Without the Vale house around her, Celeste looked smaller too.
That annoyed Mara.
She wanted her to look monstrous.
It would have simplified things.
Celeste sat across the table beside her attorney.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she looked at Mara.
“I’m sorry.”
Dana did not move.
Mara waited.
Celeste swallowed.
“What I did was indefensible.”
“Why did you do it?”
Her attorney shifted slightly.
Celeste ignored him.
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what you’d found.”
“I didn’t find anything.”
“I know that now.”
Mara stared.
“You ruined Claire’s job before mine.”
Celeste’s face changed.
“I didn’t steal that bracelet.”
“Your assistant sold it.”
“He handled consignments for me.”
“That sounds like a sentence your lawyer wrote.”
Her attorney spoke.
“Ms. Bell—”
Celeste held up a hand.
“No.”
She looked tired.
“I took things.”
The attorney closed his eyes.
Mara almost laughed.
Celeste continued.
“Not at first.”
Mara said nothing.
“I told myself I was borrowing against money I was owed. Eleanor had promised me a bonus when the capital campaign ended. Then she got sick. Payments were delayed. My business was failing.”
“You had a business?”
“Event consulting. Mostly private clients. I had debt. More than Adrian knew.”
“So you stole from his mother.”
Celeste’s mouth tightened.
“I took a bracelet.”
“And?”
“Two pairs of earrings.”
“And?”
“A brooch.”
“The necklace?”
“No.”
“You only used that to make me look like a thief.”
Celeste looked away.
“Yes.”
The word carried no drama.
Mara hated that too.
“Why me?”
“Because you saw the box.”
“I told you I didn’t look inside.”
“I couldn’t risk it.”
“You could have told the truth.”
Celeste gave a tired, almost bitter smile.
“To Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“You think people like Adrian understand what it means to be one payment from everything collapsing?”
Mara stared at her.
“I make thirty-two thousand dollars a year.”
Celeste’s smile disappeared.
May you like
“Don’t explain financial fear to me.”
For the first time, Celeste looked ashamed.
