Chương 8
Lewis and Mara both looked at Damian.
Damian did not move.
Vanessa saw the opening.
“There. Ask your perfect Graham.”
“He’s not perfect.”
“You trusted him.”
“I did.”
“More than me, apparently.”
“You approved the invoices.”
“Because your financial manager told me they were legitimate.”
“Why were the services fake?”
“How would I know?”
“Why did you ask Mara whether she backed up receiving photos?”
Vanessa stopped.
Only for an instant.
But Mara saw it.
So did Damian.
Vanessa looked at Mara.
“You told him that?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
“Why did you ask?” Damian said.
“I make conversation with staff.”
Mara actually laughed.
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“What?”
“You don’t.”
Lewis looked down at the table.
Damian’s mouth moved slightly, but he did not smile.
Vanessa did not appreciate any of it.
“You think this is funny?”
“No,” Mara said. “That part was.”
Vanessa stepped farther into the room.
“You have no idea what you’ve involved yourself in.”
Damian stood.
“Stop.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“You don’t know what Graham does for you.”
“I know exactly what he does.”
“No. You know what he tells you he does.”
Damian’s expression shifted.
There it was.
Not a confession.
Something more dangerous.
A contradiction.
Vanessa saw she had said too much.
She reached for the doorframe.
Mara watched her fingers curl against the wood.
Damian said, “Explain that.”
“I’m leaving.”
“You can.”
Vanessa’s eyes darted toward him.
“But if you want me to believe Graham directed these approvals without your knowledge, this is probably your best chance to tell me why.”
Vanessa pressed her lips together.
“I want my attorney.”
“Then call your attorney.”
“My phone’s payment wallet stopped working.”
“Your phone still makes calls.”
“I need a car.”
“One is waiting.”
Vanessa looked at Mara again.
That look carried no fear now.
Only hatred.
“You should have signed the wine sheet.”
Mara felt the room go still.
Vanessa seemed to hear herself after the sentence was already out.
Damian’s voice became very quiet.
“Why?”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
For the first time that night, she looked tired.
Not frightened.
Not defeated.
Tired.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
“No.”
She stepped back.
“Vanessa.”
She opened her eyes.
“I said no.”
Then she left.
No one followed.
The sound of her heels moved down the service corridor, wrong for that part of the house, sharp against the practical tile.
Mara listened until it disappeared.
Lewis sat slowly.
“She planted it.”
Damian looked toward the doorway.
“We still don’t know who physically put it there.”
Mara understood the distinction.
She appreciated it and hated that she had to.
“Can I go home now?”
Damian turned.
“Yes.”
Lewis said, “I’ll drive you.”
“My car’s here.”
“You’ve had wine thrown on you, you’ve been grabbed, and somebody planted jewelry in your locker.”
“I haven’t been drinking.”
“That was not my point.”
Mara looked at him.
Lewis looked back.
For some reason she suddenly wanted to cry.
Not because he was kind.
Because he sounded exactly like himself.
Annoying.
Practical.
Worried.
She picked up her wet uniform in a plastic laundry bag.
“I’ll drive.”
“Mara.”
“I need to do one normal thing tonight.”
Lewis stopped arguing.
Damian walked with her to the staff entrance.
The house had become active behind them. Security moved quietly through rooms. A family-office attorney had been called. Someone was preserving access logs. Someone else was photographing the locker.
Mara knew enough about wealthy emergencies to understand that by morning there would be conference calls, document holds, lawyers, and people using calm voices to discuss terrible things.
At the door, Damian said, “Take tomorrow off.”
She looked at him.
“With pay.”
“I assumed.”
He almost smiled.
“Good.”
Mara adjusted the laundry bag beneath her arm.
“I’m not resigning tonight.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know.”
She pushed the door open.
Cold evening air touched her face.
“Mara.”
She stopped.
Damian stood beneath the fluorescent service light, no jacket, sleeves rolled, looking less like the man from magazine covers than someone who had arrived home and discovered the cost of not paying attention.
“I should have known,” he said.
Mara considered that.
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You should have made it easier for people to tell you.”
Then she left.
Her apartment in Yonkers was forty minutes away at that hour.
Mara drove with the radio off.
At a red light she noticed dried wine beneath one thumbnail.
She scraped at it until the light changed.
Halfway home, she pulled into a gas station and bought coffee she did not want because doing something ordinary had seemed important when Lewis suggested driving her.
The coffee tasted burned.
She drank half anyway.
At home, she placed the wet uniform in the sink because she could not decide what else to do with it.
Then she stood in her kitchen for ten minutes without turning on the light.
Traffic moved below the window.
Somebody in the next building laughed loudly.
A dog barked three times and stopped.
Mara opened the refrigerator, stared at a carton of eggs, and closed it again.
Her phone contained seventeen messages.
Lewis.
Two coworkers.
Her younger sister, Claire, who had seen nothing but somehow always texted at the wrong moment.
A number Mara did not recognize.
Damian.
She opened his last.
Security confirmed Vanessa’s administrative credential accessed the estate office at 6:11 p.m. We are preserving all records. No need to respond tonight.
Mara read it twice.
Then she opened Lewis’s.
Do not talk to anyone from family office without your own lawyer.
She called him.
He answered on the first ring.
“I knew you’d call.”
“I hate when people say that.”
“Sorry.”
“Why do I need a lawyer?”
“Because Graham called me.”
Mara sat at the kitchen table.
“When?”
“Five minutes ago.”
“What did he want?”
“To know what I gave Damian.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you tell Damian?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“His attorney is removing Graham’s access.”
Mara rubbed her forehead.
“Lewis.”
May you like
“What?”
“Why did Vanessa pick me?”
