Chương 3
Aaron moved.
Celia stared at Claire’s cream-covered face. “I was supposed to record the proposal.”
“You laughed.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Celia’s mouth worked before sound came out. “I thought it was planned.”
“Owen didn’t.”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
Celia looked down at her phone. “I’ll send it.”
“Now.”
Arthur touched Claire’s elbow. His hand was gentle, but it was still an attempt to direct her.
She pulled away.
The motion made Owen lift his head. His eyelashes were wet. A smear of cream crossed the lapel of his tuxedo, and one pale pink sugar petal clung to his bow tie.
“Can we go home?” he whispered.
Claire looked toward the white double doors, then toward the side hallway where Daniel had disappeared.
Home was a four-story townhouse on East Seventy-Third Street, purchased through a company Arthur controlled and renovated according to Daniel’s plans. Daniel’s clothes filled half the closets. His fingerprints opened the front door. His voice lived in the kitchen, the study, the stairwell, and the small room where Owen kept wooden trains beneath his bed.
“No,” she said. “We’re going somewhere else.”
Owen considered this with the solemnity he usually reserved for instructions about crossing streets.
“Can Bunny come?”
Bunny was a gray stuffed rabbit he had owned since he was eleven months old. It was upstairs in the hotel suite, because Daniel had insisted they spend the night after the party.
“Yes.”
“Before we go?”
“Yes.”
Claire turned to the manager. “I need access to the suite. Daniel cannot come with us.”
“We can arrange that.”
“And I want a copy of every security recording from this floor preserved.”
Arthur looked at her.
The manager nodded. “Our legal department will handle the preservation request.”
“Please write down the camera locations and the name of whoever receives it.”
The manager took out a small notepad.
Claire had learned to ask for names from her father. Arthur had always said that systems became less mysterious when attached to a person who could be held responsible. He had meant it as business advice. She used it now because her face smelled like sugar and her son would not let go of her neck.
A paramedic examined Claire in a private conference room twenty minutes later. She had a red mark along her cheekbone, frosting in her ear, and a small cut inside her lower lip where her teeth had struck it. No concussion signs. No reason for a hospital unless symptoms changed.
The paramedic handed her a printed sheet and told her to avoid driving.
“I wasn’t planning to,” Claire said.
Arthur stood by the window speaking quietly into his phone. He had already called an attorney, a pediatric therapist, the hotel’s owner, and someone whose name Claire did not hear. He did not ask whether she wanted any of those calls made.
Owen sat on the conference table in his socks while one of the hotel employees cleaned frosting from his shoes. He had Bunny under one arm and a paper cup of water in both hands.
“Is the cake dead?” he asked.
The employee paused.
Claire sat across from him in a hotel robe. Cream remained along her hairline and beneath one crystal earring. She had wiped most of it from her face, but she could still feel it drying behind her ear.
“The cake is definitely dead,” she said.
Owen looked at the employee. “It was vanilla.”
“With red velvet on the bottom,” the employee said.
Owen sighed. “That part was for grown-ups.”
For the first time since the ballroom, Claire almost laughed. The sound stopped in her chest and became something painful.
Arthur ended his call.
“My driver is downstairs.”
“We’re not going to your apartment.”
His eyes narrowed. “You are not going back to the townhouse.”
“I know.”
“Then where?”
“The suite.”
“Daniel booked the suite.”
“The hotel changed the access code. Security is outside.”
“For tonight, perhaps. Tomorrow?”
“I’ll decide tomorrow.”
“You have a five-year-old.”
“I’m aware.”
“He needs stability.”
Claire looked at Owen, who was peeling the paper seam from his cup.
“He needs one adult who doesn’t use stability as another word for obedience.”
Arthur’s face went still.
The hotel employee became intensely interested in Owen’s shoes.
Arthur waited until she left.
“I came because your assistant called my office,” he said. “She was concerned.”
“Nina called you?”
“She forwarded messages Daniel sent to your work account.”
“What messages?”
Arthur took his phone from his pocket.
Claire did not reach for it.
“Read them.”
His thumb moved across the screen. “‘You will not embarrass me in front of everyone.’ Another says, ‘Wear the dress I sent and keep your father away unless you want this to become ugly.’”
Claire stared at him.
Daniel had sent both messages the previous afternoon. She had read them during a meeting and marked them unread because Nina had entered her office. Later she had convinced herself that ugly meant an argument. Daniel used ugly for financial problems, press leaks, even restaurant service.
“You had my emails forwarded?”
“Nina forwarded these.”
“You have access to my work account?”
“No.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Arthur slid the phone back into his pocket. “This is not the moment.”
“It’s always the moment when you’re telling me what Daniel did. It’s never the moment when I ask what you did.”
Owen looked up from the cup.
Claire softened her voice. “Honey, Wade is going to take you into the next room for cartoons.”
“I don’t want cartoons.”
“Then you can show him Bunny’s torn ear.”
Wade crouched beside him. He was enormous and uncomfortable around children, which Owen found fascinating.
“Can you sew?” Owen asked.
“No.”
“Can you shoot?”
Wade glanced at Claire.
“Not in hotels,” she said.
Owen considered the answer, then climbed down from the table and followed Wade into the adjoining room.
May you like
When the door closed, Arthur sat across from Claire.
The black suit made him look as though he had come from a funeral, which was how he dressed for almost everything important. He had worn navy to her mother’s funeral because black, he said, encouraged people to speak in clichés.
