Chương 9
Benjamin placed the photocopied check on the table.
“You received this yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“So did I.”
He showed them a photograph of another note.
Ask your mother what she bought.
Leah studied him.
“Did you send mine?”
“No.”
“Did Eleanor?”
“My mother denies it.”
“Do you believe her?”
Benjamin’s jaw tightened. “I believe she is being attacked.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She has received threats. Someone threw red paint on her car.”
Leah had not known.
“I didn’t do that.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I know you didn’t personally do it.”
Marisol interrupted. “Let’s avoid statements that imply Ms. Moreno inspired violence by existing in public.”
Benjamin’s attorney shifted in his chair.
Benjamin rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I am not accusing you,” he said. “I am trying to understand why a private check from my grandfather’s records was sent to both of us.”
“Your grandfather?”
“The account belonged to him. My mother had signing authority.”
“Where are the records now?”
“In family archives.”
“Who can access them?”
“My parents. Me. Two accountants. The family office administrator.”
“And whoever copied this.”
“Yes.”
The waitress arrived. Benjamin ordered eggs, then changed to oatmeal, then said he did not want anything. The indecision made him briefly human.
Leah asked, “Why did your mother accuse me?”
“She saw you near the reception room.”
“The bracelet wasn’t missing.”
“She believed it was.”
“She saw the locket.”
Benjamin’s expression gave away less than Eleanor’s had.
“She says she did not.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I believe my mother has spent thirty years protecting my father from people who wanted access to him.”
“Was Claire one of those people?”
“I don’t know who Claire was.”
“Your father did.”
“My father’s judgment has not always been reliable.”
Leah looked at the check.
“You think my mother and Rosa were paid.”
“I think Rosa accepted money.”
“For what?”
“That is what I’m trying to determine.”
“What do you want from me?”
“To delay public statements until the DNA result arrives and we understand the documents.”
“I haven’t made public statements.”
“Your attorney sent a letter.”
“That was private.”
“It accused my mother of defamation.”
“Your mother accused me of theft in front of three hundred people.”
Benjamin glanced toward the diner windows. A delivery truck blocked most of the light.
“My mother made a terrible mistake.”
“She made a decision.”
His eyes met hers.
“You sound like my father.”
“No,” Leah said. “He sounds like people who work for him. I sound like Rosa.”
Benjamin’s face changed at the name.
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
“Then you should want to know why she took the money.”
“I do.”
“Even if the answer is not flattering?”
“Do you?”
The question silenced him.
Marisol closed her notebook.
“Mr. Mercer, is there a reason you requested this meeting beyond informing us you received an anonymous note?”
Benjamin’s attorney answered. “We propose a mutual confidentiality agreement while the parties investigate.”
“No,” Leah said.
Marisol glanced at her but did not object.
Benjamin leaned forward. “Every hour this stays public harms people who had nothing to do with what happened.”
“Hotel employees?”
“Yes. Foundation staff. My mother’s driver. Our family.”
“My employer fired me.”
“And my mother cannot leave her apartment without security.”
“She can afford security.”
Benjamin’s mouth tightened. “That does not make threats acceptable.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
The agreement surprised him.
Leah continued, “But I didn’t create this. She did.”
“My father created part of it.”
“Then talk to him.”
“He isn’t speaking to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I advised the board to place him on temporary leave.”
Leah sat back.
Benjamin looked exhausted now rather than controlled.
“The hotel’s lenders are nervous,” he said. “The foundation’s gala raised nine million dollars, and donors are threatening to withdraw pledges. My father has stopped attending meetings. My mother’s attorneys are preparing for litigation. Employees are afraid. This is not a family argument anymore.”
“It became more than a family argument when your mother used a ballroom full of people to punish me.”
Benjamin flinched.
Not visibly enough for his attorney to notice, perhaps, but Leah did.
She wondered whether Eleanor had punished him in public too.
The DNA result arrived two days later.
Marisol insisted Leah receive it first.
The email came at 10:14 in the morning. Leah was repairing a sympathy arrangement for a neighborhood funeral home that had agreed to pay her in cash. She had begun taking small jobs from her apartment, storing buckets in the bathtub and keeping invoices beneath a magnet shaped like a tomato.
Her phone vibrated beside a bundle of white lisianthus.
Marisol called immediately.
“You do not have to open it alone,” she said.
“Tessa is here.”
Tessa was sitting on the floor trimming stems, though she had not been there until Leah called eight minutes earlier and said only, The result came.
“Open it when you’re ready,” Marisol said.
Leah opened it before she could become less ready.
The report used careful language. The tested man could not be excluded as the biological father. The probability of paternity exceeded 99.99 percent.
Leah read the number.
Then she returned to the flowers.
Tessa watched her place three stems into the arrangement.
“Leah.”
“This needs to go out by noon.”
“Leah.”
“The funeral director hates visible pollen.”
Tessa took the scissors from her hand.
Leah stared at the arrangement.
“I thought there would be some feeling,” she said.
“There is.”
“No. I mean a different one.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
She sat on the closed toilet lid because every other surface in the bathroom held flowers.
Tessa sat on the edge of the tub.
“Do you want me to say something comforting or something angry?”
“Neither.”
“Good. I’m bad at comforting and too good at angry.”
Leah gave her a tired look.
Tessa touched her knee.
For several minutes, they listened to water drip from the faucet into a bucket of greenery.
May you like
Julian called once. He left no voicemail.
An hour later, he sent a message.
