Chương 4
“So?”
“So the first thing I saw was you kicking a tray out of her hands.”
“I lost my temper.”
“You grabbed her hard enough to leave a mark.”
“She tried to walk away from me.”
“You planted a bracelet in her locker.”
Vanessa’s face went still.
“We do not know that.”
“No,” Damian said. “We don’t.”
The correction surprised everyone.
Most of all Vanessa.
Damian slid the phone into his pocket.
“We are going to find out.”
Vanessa folded her arms again, but the gesture had lost some of its elegance.
“And until then?”
“Until then, you don’t go near Mara.”
“This is my home.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Vanessa stared at him.
Damian glanced around the hall, at the staircase, the paintings, the shattered glass.
“This is my home. I let you treat it like yours.”
Vanessa’s chin rose.
“That’s an ugly distinction to discover after three years.”
“Yes.”
Mara looked at him.
He had not defended himself.
Vanessa seemed to have expected him to.
That made her angrier.
“I moved my life here.”
“You kept your apartment.”
“Because you told me to.”
“I told you not to give up property you owned until we were married.”
“You mean until the prenup made it yours too.”
“That isn’t how the prenup works.”
“Oh, spare me.”
For the first time, the argument shifted away from Mara.
She should have felt relief.
Instead she felt trapped inside an intimate room she had never agreed to enter.
Rich people’s private fights were dangerous to staff. They could make you witness, accomplice, inconvenience, or evidence simply by happening within earshot.
Mara wiped her hands on the sides of her trousers.
“I should go change.”
Damian turned.
“Yes.”
Vanessa said, “She should go home.”
Mara looked at her.
“No.”
The word surprised her almost as much as it surprised Vanessa.
Damian said nothing.
Mara forced herself to continue.
“I’m not leaving until I see who signed out that key.”
Vanessa’s mouth curled.
“Now she’s giving orders.”
“No,” Mara said. “I’m asking not to be sent away while somebody decides what happened to me.”
Damian’s eyes rested on her for a long moment.
“That’s fair.”
Vanessa laughed again.
“Of course it is.”
Mara walked toward the service corridor.
Each step made the wet fabric at her knee pull against her skin.
At the corner she heard Damian call her name.
She stopped but did not turn.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Mara looked back then.
He stood beneath the chandelier with Vanessa on one side and eight silent men on the other, looking like exactly what he was: a person accustomed to making complicated things simple through authority.
Mara had never been less impressed by it.
“For what part?”
Damian had no answer.
She nodded once.
Then walked away.
In the staff changing room, Mara closed the door and leaned both hands against a metal locker.
The room smelled faintly of detergent and somebody’s microwaved tomato soup.
Her locker stood open.
The lock itself was undamaged.
Inside, her spare uniform hung exactly where she had left it. Her canvas lunch bag sat on the upper shelf. A paperback mystery novel was tucked beside it, facedown at page 184. Her cheap bottle of hand lotion lay on its side.
Nothing looked disturbed.
That was almost worse.
Someone had entered carefully.
Mara changed slowly.
When she pulled the wet sleeve from her left arm, the red handprint had already begun darkening around the edges.
She stared at it.
Her first clear thought was absurd.
I have work tomorrow.
Then she laughed.
A small ugly sound escaped her throat.
She sat on the wooden bench.
Her hands shook harder now that no one could see them.
On the far side of the room, the vending machine hummed.
Mara focused on the rows of crackers and candy behind the glass.
C4, peanut M&M’s.
B7, pretzels.
A2, a granola bar nobody bought because it had been there so long the wrapper had faded.
She had spent eighteen months complaining about that granola bar with the night staff.
It felt unbearable that it was still there.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
A message from Lewis Hall.
He had heard enough from security to know something was wrong.
Are you okay?
Mara looked at the question for nearly a minute.
Then typed:
No.
She deleted it.
Typed:
I’m fine.
Deleted that too.
Finally she wrote:
Vanessa says I stole her bracelet. Security found one in my locker. Did you give anyone the master key today?
Lewis responded almost immediately.
What?
Then:
No.
Then:
Mara do not leave.
She stared at the message.
That was unusual.
Lewis was cautious to the point of irritation. He documented everything, used full names in emails, and once made a dishwasher sign a form because the man had borrowed a pressure washer.
Mara typed:
Why?
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Before his answer arrived, someone knocked.
Mara stood too quickly.
Her pulse jumped.
“Mara?”
Damian.
She opened the door halfway.
He had taken off his suit jacket. Without it, the rolled sleeves of his black shirt made him look less formal and somehow more exhausted.
“I’m not coming in,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Security confirmed the jeweler still has Vanessa’s bracelet.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Not with relief exactly.
Relief implied the danger had passed.
This danger had only changed shape.
“Did they send proof?”
“They confirmed the repair number, date, and that the item hasn’t been collected. My attorney can request the proper documentation tomorrow if it becomes necessary.”
Mara nodded.
Damian glanced at her arm.
The bruise was darker now.
“Do you want medical attention?”
“No.”
“Photographs?”
“I took some.”
“Good.”
Mara leaned against the doorframe.
He seemed about to say something else.
“What?”
“Lewis is on his way back.”
“He texted me.”
“He says no one had authorization to use the master key after he left.”
Mara held up her phone.
May you like
“He told me not to leave.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
