Chương 2
Several steps behind Adrian, a man in a charcoal suit touched two fingers to the earpiece tucked behind his right ear. Mara had noticed him earlier that evening, always near Adrian but never appearing to watch him.
The man stepped closer.
“Mr. Vale,” he said, low enough that the nearest guests had to strain to hear, “museum security is on its way. There are multiple recordings.”
Celeste turned sharply.
“Tell them to put their phones away.”
Nobody obeyed her.
The man in charcoal did not even look at her.
Adrian’s attention stayed on Mara.
“What was your mother’s name?”
Mara’s grip tightened around the locket.
She should have refused.
She knew that later.
But pain and humiliation had stripped away whatever careful instincts usually kept her from answering rich strangers who believed questions were things other people owed them.
“Lydia.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Not for long.
One beat.
Maybe two.
“Lydia Reyes?”
Mara stopped breathing.
Celeste whispered something.
Adrian heard it.
“What?”
Celeste shook her head.
“What did you say?”
“I said this is insane.”
“You knew her name.”
“I heard her say it.”
“No.” Adrian’s voice remained level. “Before she answered.”
Mara turned toward Celeste.
Celeste’s face had become pale beneath carefully applied makeup.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Mara looked from one of them to the other.
The shoulder pain was spreading now, duller but deeper. The room smelled like champagne, perfume, wet wool from coats near the entrance, and the faint metallic smell of storm air coming through the building’s ventilation system.
“Why do you know my mother?” Mara asked.
Celeste recovered enough to smile.
It was a bad smile.
“You’re concussed.”
“She wasn’t hit in the head.”
Adrian’s reply came immediately.
Mara looked at him.
He had noticed.
She didn’t like that either.
Museum security arrived before anyone answered.
Two guards, then the director of guest services, then one of the museum’s administrators whom Mara knew only as a woman who sent emails about overtime authorization.
Everything became procedural in the awkward way real emergencies often did.
Was anyone bleeding?
Did anyone need an ambulance?
Who had physical contact with whom?
Was there broken glass still on the floor?
Could guests please move back?
No, further back.
Please.
Sir, please do not step there.
A security officer asked Mara if she could move her arm.
She tried.
Pain tightened behind her shoulder.
“Not all the way.”
“We should have medical take a look.”
“I’m fine.”
The officer gave her the weary expression of someone who had heard those words from too many injured people.
“You’re on your knees with blood on your apron.”
“I’m standing now.”
“That’s not the point.”
Darnell came over carrying a clean service napkin.
“Your mouth,” he said.
She touched her lip.
“Oh.”
He handed her the napkin.
Their fingers brushed.
“You good?”
“No.”
“Okay. Just checking.”
It was the most normal thing anyone had said since the tray struck her.
Mara pressed the napkin to her mouth.
Across the room, Celeste was telling a security supervisor that the incident had been misinterpreted.
“I did not attack her.”
Mara almost admired the speed with which reality was being reorganized.
“She jerked the tray,” Celeste said. “I reacted. Ask anyone.”
Darnell glanced at Mara.
“I saw the whole thing.”
Celeste looked at him as if a chair had spoken.
“You were across the room.”
“I was six feet away.”
“You were working.”
“Yeah,” Darnell said. “That generally requires my eyes to be open.”
Mara closed hers briefly.
Wrong moment.
Still funny.
The laugh that escaped her hurt her shoulder and frightened her enough that it stopped immediately.
Adrian turned.
His expression softened for a fraction of a second.
Then Celeste said, “This isn’t funny.”
“No,” Mara said. “It really isn’t.”
Celeste stared at her.
There it was again, that familiar social reflex: irritation that the employee had spoken without being invited.
Adrian saw it too.
“You need to stop talking,” he told Celeste.
Her chin lifted.
“Excuse me?”
“Until you have counsel.”
Celeste gave a short, incredulous laugh.
“You’re threatening me over some waitress who happened to show up wearing a piece of stolen jewelry?”
Mara’s hand closed over the locket again.
Adrian’s expression changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“Careful.”
“She could have gotten it anywhere.”
“You know she didn’t.”
“How?”
“Because I have a photograph of that locket around Lydia Reyes’s neck.”
Mara forgot about her shoulder.
The room narrowed.
“What?”
Adrian turned toward her.
There was no satisfying confidence in his face now.
Only dread.
And something that looked very much like shame.
“My father kept the photograph.”
Mara waited.
Adrian swallowed.
“In a letter addressed to me.”
The museum administrator stepped in before Mara could answer.
“Mr. Vale, Ms. Harrow, Ms. Reyes, I need all of you to come with security. We can’t continue this conversation in the gallery.”
Mara looked at the donors surrounding them.
She had served half of them drinks.
Now they looked at her with something different.
Not respect.
Not yet.
Curiosity.
That was worse.
A woman in diamonds whispered to the man beside her without taking her eyes off Mara.
Mara straightened her apron automatically.
Then she hated herself for doing it.
The security office smelled faintly of burnt coffee.
Someone found an ice pack, wrapped it in a towel, and placed it against Mara’s shoulder. She sat in a molded plastic chair beneath a wall of security monitors while an EMT asked questions.
Name.
Age.
Any medications.
Dizziness.
Nausea.
Loss of consciousness.
Could she lift her arm to here?
How about here?
“No.”
“Okay. Don’t force it.”
Across the room, Celeste sat with one ankle crossed over the other and her phone in her hand. She had stopped speaking to anyone except her attorney, whose voice came through the phone loudly enough that Mara caught pieces.
Do not make additional statements.
Do not leave.
Preserve communications.
Adrian stood near the door.
May you like
His security aide remained outside.
Every few seconds Adrian looked at Mara, then caught himself and looked away.
