Chương 2
Lila’s handwriting.
Victor stepped forward.
“Those belong to the hotel.”
Helena raised one hand, and Marcus left the doorway.
He did not approach Victor. He moved to a position beside the piano, close enough that everyone understood what would happen if Victor reached for the papers.
Clara looked at Helena.
“You knew about these?”
“I knew there were complaints.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Helena’s expression shifted by an amount most people would have missed. Her lips parted, then closed.
“I didn’t know you were involved until this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?”
“A witness provided your name.”
“Lila?”
“I can’t discuss that here.”
Clara gave a short, breathless laugh. The sound embarrassed her as soon as it escaped.
“Of course you can’t.”
Victor moved toward Beatrice and bent to speak near her ear. Beatrice did not turn toward him. She watched Helena instead.
“You came into my hotel with a security man,” Beatrice said. “You accessed internal footage, and now you’re making accusations in my ballroom.”
“I came through the front entrance after signing in with your legal department,” Helena said. “Marcus is here because one of your former employees received a threat last week. The footage was shown to me by a member of your security staff who has authorized access.”
Victor’s face sharpened.
“Who?”
Helena ignored him.
Beatrice’s fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.
“Clara,” she said, “I regret that the rehearsal became unpleasant.”
Clara waited.
Beatrice seemed to expect gratitude for the sentence.
“Unpleasant,” Clara repeated.
“You made a serious accusation in a highly emotional manner.”
“I asked why the people carrying your food and cleaning your rooms weren’t receiving the service charges printed on guest bills.”
Victor stepped between them.
“She doesn’t understand how distributions work.”
Lila had explained the system to Clara three nights earlier while they ate vending-machine crackers in a service corridor during a break. The hotel added a twenty-two percent service charge to banquet contracts. Guests assumed the money went to the staff. A portion once had. Over the previous year, the employees’ share had gradually disappeared, replaced by a flat hourly supplement that amounted to a fraction of the collected fees.
When Lila questioned payroll, she was told the difference covered administrative costs. When she asked for a written breakdown, two of her shifts vanished from the schedule.
Clara had listened because she liked Lila, and because musicians learned to recognize withheld money the way animals recognized smoke.
“I understand subtraction,” Clara said.
Victor’s eyes returned to her, and for a moment the recognition in them was almost intimate. She had damaged something he believed belonged to him: the certainty that she would be afraid in the correct way.
Helena slid the phone into her handbag.
“We’re leaving.”
“I haven’t been paid,” Clara said.
Victor smiled again, although effort now showed around his mouth.
“You breached your contract when you stopped rehearsal.”
“The check was due before I played.”
“You’ll hear from accounting.”
Clara bent to pick up the last page of music. Her fingers shook. She hated that Victor could see it.
Helena reached for the paper, but Clara took it first.
“I can carry my own things.”
“I know.”
The reply was so quiet that Clara nearly wished Helena had defended herself.
Marcus opened the ballroom door. Clara walked through without looking back. Her heels made small, precise sounds across the marble. She had almost reached the corridor when Beatrice spoke behind her.
“Miss Wynn.”
Clara stopped.
“My birthday dinner begins at seven tomorrow,” Beatrice said. “If you choose to return and complete your obligation, we may still resolve this privately.”
Clara turned.
Beatrice sat as straight as before, but the champagne flute now rested untouched on the table beside her.
Victor looked pleased. Helena looked at no one.
Clara held the music against her chest.
“You watched him make me kneel.”
Beatrice’s face changed, though not into remorse. It became older.
“I watched a situation I did not fully understand.”
“You understood where I was.”
Clara left before the old woman could answer.
The service elevator smelled of lemon polish and cooked onions. Helena stood on one side, Marcus on the other, while Clara watched the floor numbers descend. Her reflection in the steel doors looked like a woman leaving a wedding after being told the groom had married someone else.
At the lobby level, the doors opened on two housekeepers pushing a cart stacked with towels. They stepped aside when they saw Helena and Marcus. One of them recognized Clara’s dress from the rehearsal posters and gave her a quick, concerned glance.
Clara looked down at her music.
The three of them crossed the lobby without speaking. Guests sat beneath palms in brass planters, tapping at phones and drinking cocktails served in glasses too delicate for the amount they cost. A child ran toward the revolving door until his father caught the back of his jacket. Somewhere near the bar, a man laughed loudly at something that was not funny enough to deserve it.
Outside, evening traffic crawled along the avenue. A delivery cyclist shouted at a taxi. Marcus walked ahead to a black sedan waiting near the curb.
“I’m taking the train,” Clara said.
Helena stopped.
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I have been alone.”
“Not tonight.”
Clara shifted the music under one arm. “You don’t get to arrive after fourteen years and decide which nights count.”
Marcus opened the rear door of the sedan, then looked away, giving them the privacy of someone trained to pretend he could not hear.
Helena’s face remained composed, but she pressed her thumbnail against the side of her ring.
“I didn’t know you were working here,” she said.
“You would have known if you called.”
“I did call.”
“Three months ago, when Dad died. You left a voicemail that sounded like you were confirming an appointment.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
May you like
“That has never stopped you before.”
A bus exhaled at the curb. Warm air pushed the smell of diesel between them.
