Chương 2
Ethan’s nostrils tightened. “This is a family matter.”
“You announced your engagement in a ballroom paid for by a healthcare foundation while half the board watched. You made family a matter of governance.”
A few people looked down at their drinks.
Clare had never liked Miriam. During board dinners, Miriam asked nurses for opinions only after physicians had finished giving theirs, as though the nurses’ chief purpose was to confirm the room had been listening. But the woman understood leverage. More important, she understood that failing to respond in front of witnesses could later look like complicity.
Eleanor made a sound.
It was no louder than a breath caught against a closed door.
Clare set the tray on a nearby table and moved toward her. Ethan moved at the same time.
Eleanor flinched.
He stopped.
The reaction was small. Most of the guests would later remember it as larger because memory enjoys clarity that life does not provide.
Clare reached the staircase first.
“I’m here,” she said.
Eleanor’s fingers had gone white around the railing. Her pulse jumped visibly at her throat. Clare resisted the old instinct to take command without permission. She held out her hand instead.
“May I?”
Eleanor gave the faintest nod.
Clare placed two fingers against her wrist. Fast, irregular for three beats, then steadier. Eleanor was breathing too shallowly, her weight pitched forward. Clare guided her down the final step.
“Chair,” Clare said.
A waiter brought one before anyone else reacted.
Ethan came closer, keeping his hands where Eleanor could see them. “Mother, you’re overtired. We’re going upstairs.”
Eleanor shook her head.
The movement cost her. Her eyes closed afterward.
Clare crouched beside her. “Do you have chest pain?”
Another head shake.
“Trouble breathing?”
Eleanor lifted one hand, uncertain.
“Different from usual?”
A pause, then one finger pressed against her own sternum.
Ethan took out his phone. “I’m calling Dr. Landon.”
“Call emergency services,” Clare said.
“He knows her history.”
“And emergency services can evaluate her now.”
Ethan’s attention sharpened. “You are no longer her nurse.”
“No. I’m the person in front of her while she’s showing new symptoms.”
“I said I’ll handle it.”
Eleanor’s hand moved from her chest and caught Clare’s wrist.
Not Ethan’s.
Clare looked down at the thin fingers against her skin. She had washed those hands after breakfast, rubbed moisturizer into the dry knuckles, held them through speech exercises Eleanor had hated. Two weeks earlier, Ethan had told Clare that affection had confused her about her place in the family.
Now his mother would not let go.
“Call an ambulance,” Miriam told someone behind her.
The room changed again. Phones that had been recording lowered. People made space. A retired surgeon pushed forward, announced his credentials to no one in particular, then crouched beside Clare and asked Eleanor the same questions Clare had already asked. Clare answered only when Eleanor looked at her.
Across the ballroom, Dominic removed his hand from the drive and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Ethan saw him.
Their eyes met over the heads of kneeling guests.
“Put it back,” Ethan said.
Dominic adjusted his cuff. “No.”
Security reached them then, but Miriam stepped into their path.
“No one leaves,” she said, “and no one touches anyone.”
“That man has stolen property,” Ethan said.
Dominic’s expression did not change. “I’ve been called worse by men with better evidence.”
Clare almost laughed.
The sound rose in the wrong place and died against her teeth. Exhaustion had begun to loosen things inside her. She turned back to Eleanor before anyone could see.
Paramedics entered through the ballroom doors four minutes later. To Clare, it felt both immediate and late.
They moved with the plain efficiency of people who did not care about chandeliers, family names, or engagement rings. One asked for Eleanor’s medications. Ethan answered. Clare corrected the dosage of her anticoagulant. Ethan corrected Clare’s correction, then checked his phone and discovered she was right.
The paramedic noticed.
Small things accumulated.
Eleanor was placed on a stretcher. When Ethan said he was riding with her, she pulled her hand away from him and reached toward Clare.
“Family only,” Ethan said to the paramedic.
The paramedic looked at Eleanor. “Who do you want with you, ma’am?”
Eleanor pointed to Clare.
Ethan’s jaw moved once.
“This woman was terminated for misconduct.”
Eleanor pointed again.
The paramedic nodded. “She comes.”
Clare rose too quickly and had to steady herself against the staircase. The deep slit of her gown opened along her leg. Somewhere behind her, a camera shutter clicked.
For the first time all evening, she became aware of what she was wearing. Ethan had once chosen the gown for a foundation dinner in Chicago, telling her the color made her look “expensive without trying.” She had hated the phrase and worn the dress anyway. Tonight, she had put it on because the ballroom staff knew her in it and because anger had made practicality feel like cowardice.
Now the silk was damp beneath her arms, the hem spotted with champagne, and one strap had begun to cut into her shoulder.
Dominic approached as the paramedics wheeled Eleanor away.
“The drive,” Clare said.
“I have it.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
His eyes flicked toward Ethan, who was speaking to Miriam in a voice too low to hear. “It stays with me until you’re somewhere he can’t close a door.”
“You said you wouldn’t take it.”
“I said I wouldn’t touch it unless he did.”
“He didn’t.”
“He tried.”
“Dominic.”
The paramedics were nearly at the doors.
He removed the drive and placed it in her palm. His fingers were warm, hers cold.
“I made two mirrored copies,” he said. “Before tonight.”
“You told me one.”
“I told you the one you needed to know about.”
There it was: the quiet arrogance that made him look honest beside Ethan only until he opened his mouth.
May you like
Clare pushed the drive into her clutch. “Do not follow us.”
“I’m going to the hospital.”
