Chương 2
“You don’t know who this woman is.”
Richard finally looked at her.
Celeste spread one hand.
“A photograph? An old woman with a photograph? Richard, please.”
Margaret watched her daughter-in-law do what she had always done well: find the version of events that allowed everyone to preserve dignity if they agreed quickly enough.
The problem was that Celeste’s heel had left a shallow dent in Nora’s tray.
The locket chain was still broken on the floor.
And two hundred people had just watched fear cross Celeste’s face before she remembered contempt.
Richard glanced toward the ballroom doors.
“Close them.”
The head of hotel security hesitated.
It was a small hesitation, but Margaret noticed it. Richard did too.
“This is a private event,” the man said carefully. “Mr. Hale, I can stop additional entry. I can’t prevent guests from leaving.”
Richard shut his eyes for half a second.
“Of course.”
The correction embarrassed him.
Good, Margaret thought.
Then she was ashamed of herself for thinking it.
Celeste seized on the mistake.
“You see what this is doing to you?”
“No,” Richard said. “I don’t.”
He looked at Margaret again.
“Where have you been?”
It was the wrong question.
Margaret had prepared for anger. Disbelief. Tears. She had even prepared for security guards taking her by the elbows.
She had not prepared for the one question that contained twelve years of accusation.
Her hand dropped from her throat.
“Trying to reach you.”
Richard went still.
Celeste laughed once, under her breath.
Margaret turned her head.
“Don’t.”
Something in her tone made Celeste stop.
Margaret had spent years imagining speeches for this woman. Most of them were brilliant. Some ended with Celeste begging forgiveness. One particularly satisfying version involved a rainstorm, though Margaret had never worked out why.
Standing in the ballroom, Margaret could remember none of them.
She was tired.
Her neck hurt.
Her left shoe was rubbing a blister into her heel.
And she wanted, suddenly and fiercely, to sit down somewhere without anybody looking at her.
Nora seemed to read part of that.
“There’s a service room off the west hall,” she said. “Quiet. Water.”
Celeste looked at her as though a chair had spoken.
“You are done here.”
Nora swallowed.
Margaret watched fear pass through the young woman now. Real fear. Not of Celeste herself, perhaps, but of what a powerful client could do with a phone call.
Nora folded her hands in front of her apron.
“With respect, ma’am, you’re not my employer.”
A waiter behind her coughed into his fist to hide something that might have been a laugh.
Celeste’s face tightened.
Richard turned toward the event manager.
“Ms. Bennett stays.”
Nora looked at him.
“I can decide that for myself too.”
Richard blinked.
For the first time that night, Margaret saw something almost human crack through his billionaire face.
“Apparently everyone can.”
Nora nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Margaret did laugh then.
It was only one breath of sound, but it hurt her throat.
Richard stared at her as if laughter were better proof than the photograph.
“Same laugh,” he said.
Margaret stopped.
He looked down.
“God.”
She hated the way that word softened her.
“Don’t do that either.”
“What?”
“Make a religion out of guilt before we even know what happened.”
Celeste stepped toward them. “Richard, I am asking you to come with me.”
He did not move.
Her voice changed.
The public polish disappeared.
“Please.”
There it was.
Not innocence.
Not yet.
But fear with no place to go.
Richard looked at her for a long moment.
Then he handed the locket back to Margaret.
His thumb brushed the broken hinge.
“This was Dad’s mother’s.”
“No.”
He frowned.
“Your grandmother gave it to me,” Margaret said. “Your father hated it. Said it made me look eighty.”
Nora glanced at Margaret’s face.
Margaret added, “He was thirty-two at the time and an idiot.”
A few guests close enough to hear looked down into their glasses.
Richard’s mouth twitched.
Celeste looked furious that anything as ordinary as a family joke could exist inside the catastrophe.
Margaret took the locket.
The metal was warm from Richard’s hand.
“Now,” she said, “I want to sit down.”
The service room was not meant for family resurrections.
It contained folding chairs, a stack of white table linens, six cases of sparkling water, and a plastic tub filled with spare votive candles. Somebody had left half a turkey sandwich on a paper plate beside an invoice printer.
Margaret chose the folding chair nearest the wall.
Richard wanted a doctor.
She refused.
Nora brought water anyway.
Celeste remained in the doorway until Richard told everyone except her, Margaret and Nora to leave.
Margaret looked at Nora.
“You can go too, dear.”
Nora’s eyes moved toward Celeste.
“I know.”
“You’ll lose your job if you stay.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not brave. That’s expensive.”
Nora gave the smallest shrug. “I already put a tray under her shoe.”
Margaret looked at the young woman’s black flats.
There was a champagne stain near one toe.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“You should know better by now.”
“I usually do.”
Margaret drank some water.
Richard leaned against a table because when he sat beside her, she had moved her chair six inches away.
He had noticed.
He had not complained.
That counted for something.
Celeste stood with both hands wrapped around one wrist.
“Margaret,” she said.
Margaret looked up.
Celeste stopped.
Whatever sentence she had planned did not survive Margaret’s expression.
Richard spoke instead.
“When did you come back?”
“Back where?”
“To New York.”
“Yesterday.”
“From?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“What were you doing in Pennsylvania?”
“Living.”
His face pinched.
Margaret set down the bottle.
“You’re going to have to ask smaller questions.”
Richard nodded.
He had always hated asking questions he did not control.
That had not changed.
“Did you know we thought you were dead?”
Margaret looked at Celeste.
“Yes.”
Richard followed her gaze.
Celeste’s hand tightened around her wrist.
“When?” he asked.
May you like
“Three years after your funeral for me.”
Richard stared.
