Chương 3
Helena glanced toward the hotel doors.
“Victor Hale is going to try to control what happened in that room.”
“He already did.”
“The footage gives you leverage.”
Clara laughed once. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The case.”
“This isn’t only a case.”
“No. It’s convenient. You’ve been investigating him, and your embarrassing daughter landed in the middle of your evidence.”
Helena flinched so slightly that Clara might have imagined it.
“You have never embarrassed me.”
“Then you hid it well.”
A doorman came outside and began adjusting the rope barriers, although they were already straight. Marcus kept one hand on the car door.
Helena lowered her voice.
“The hotel’s outside counsel retained my firm six weeks ago after multiple complaints about retaliation and service-charge accounting. I was supposed to interview management tomorrow morning. When a security supervisor contacted us today, he showed me the live feed from the ballroom.”
“So you watched.”
“For thirty-eight seconds.”
Clara stared at her.
“You counted?”
“I count when I’m trying not to act too quickly.”
“You watched him keep me on the floor.”
“I was on the second level. It took time to get downstairs.”
The answer was practical, exact, and unbearable.
Clara looked toward the subway entrance.
Helena stepped closer but did not touch her.
“The investigator assigned to the matter will change tonight,” she said. “I have a conflict now.”
“You had a conflict before tonight.”
“I didn’t know you were connected.”
“I’m your daughter. I’m connected to you whether you write it on a disclosure form or not.”
Marcus’s gaze remained fixed on traffic, but his beard moved slightly as he clenched his jaw.
Helena took a slow breath.
“Let us take you home.”
Clara wanted to refuse. Refusal had been the shape of their relationship for so long that accepting anything felt like losing balance on the marble again.
Then she remembered Victor’s hand on her shoulder and the way his voice had softened when he threatened Lila.
“Not home,” she said. “Lila’s apartment.”
Helena nodded once.
In the car, Clara sat behind Marcus and kept her music on her lap. Helena sat beside her, leaving six inches of empty leather between them. The handbag containing the phone rested upright near Helena’s feet.
Clara stared at it.
“Who has the recording?”
“The hotel does. My firm has a forensic copy of the relevant segment.”
“Can Victor delete the original?”
“He can try.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s what people do when they’re frightened.”
Clara looked out the window.
Helena had once said almost the same thing about Clara’s father. People destroy records when they are frightened. People lie when the truth threatens the life they prefer. People ask their children to trust them while hiding bank statements in a garage cabinet.
Clara had been seventeen when Helena reported Ellis Wynn to the state bar for taking money from a client trust account. By the time the investigation ended, Ellis had lost his license, their house had been sold, and every person Clara knew had chosen a version of the story. Helena’s version involved duty. Ellis’s involved betrayal. Clara’s involved a mother who had packed one suitcase and moved into a furnished apartment near the courthouse because remaining in the family home made witness interviews “complicated.”
For years, Clara believed Helena had loved the truth more than she loved either of them.
Ellis died in a rehabilitation hospital outside Baltimore after a stroke. Helena sent flowers without a card.
The car turned onto a narrower street lined with restaurants and small grocery stores. Rain from the afternoon remained in shallow gutters, reflecting red brake lights.
“Lila may not be home,” Clara said.
“Have you called her?”
Clara took out her phone.
There were seven missed calls. Three from an unfamiliar number, two from the hotel’s event office, one from Simon Lee, who managed a restaurant where she played Thursday nights, and one from Lila.
Clara called Lila first.
The call went directly to voicemail.
She sent a message.
Are you home? I’m coming over.
A reply appeared almost immediately.
Don’t.
Clara sat straighter.
Why?
Three dots appeared, vanished, then appeared again.
They fired me.
The sedan stopped at a light.
Clara read the message twice.
Another arrived.
Victor says you told them I gave you confidential payroll documents.
Clara’s hand went cold.
“I didn’t tell him,” she said.
Helena looked over.
“What happened?”
Clara showed her the screen.
Helena read without taking the phone.
“Ask where she is.”
Clara typed.
Lila replied that she was at a twenty-four-hour diner near the bus terminal. She did not want to go home because two hotel managers had stood in the hallway outside her apartment when she arrived. They had left after she threatened to call the police, but she was afraid they might return.
Marcus changed lanes before Helena spoke.
At the diner, Lila sat in a booth beneath a flickering wall light, wearing black banquet trousers and a white shirt with the hotel insignia embroidered near the collar. She had removed her name tag, leaving two small holes in the fabric. A mug of coffee cooled between her hands.
She stood when Clara approached, then seemed to reconsider and sat again.
“Why is she here?”
Helena stopped at the end of the booth.
Clara slid in across from Lila.
“She brought me.”
“I didn’t ask how she got here.”
Marcus took a table near the entrance where he could see the windows and both exits. A waitress handed him a menu. He ordered tea.
Helena remained standing.
“Ms. Santos, I’m Helena Wynn. My firm was retained to conduct an independent investigation into complaints involving Hale Grand.”
“I know who you are.”
Lila looked at Clara.
“You said your mother was a lawyer.”
“She’s not practicing.”
“I’m a licensed attorney,” Helena said. “I don’t represent clients in court. I conduct investigations.”
May you like
Lila’s eyes were red, though she had not been crying recently. She pushed the coffee away.
“You people always find a title that means you can ask questions without answering any.”
