Chương 5
They questioned Keene about the lock.
They photographed the card reader.
A paramedic checked Celeste’s blood pressure twice because the first reading was high.
Another paramedic asked Eleanor to move back.
Eleanor did.
The officers did not arrest Victor immediately.
That enraged her.
Then embarrassed her, because she understood that her outrage partly came from a lifelong assumption that people in uniforms should produce decisions at the speed she wanted.
A detective arrived after midnight.
Her name was Lena Ortiz.
She wore dark slacks, a winter coat, and the exhausted expression of someone who had expected to finish her shift an hour earlier.
She listened to Celeste.
She listened to Victor.
She asked for the electronic access logs.
Keene said the security firm could produce them.
Victor’s attorney arrived before anyone had requested one.
That mattered.
Eleanor noticed Ortiz notice it.
The attorney, Martin Bale, was a compact man in his fifties who had represented Vance interests for years.
He walked into the house and saw Eleanor sitting outside the downstairs suite.
His pace slowed.
“Eleanor.”
She stared at him.
He removed his gloves.
“You should not speak to anyone until we understand what’s happening.”
“Who called you?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
“Victor?”
“I represent the family.”
“No.”
“Eleanor.”
“You represent Victor tonight.”
His eyes sharpened.
“That distinction may become expensive.”
“Then bill him.”
He lowered his voice.
“You need to think carefully. There are guests upstairs. Phones. Press will have this before sunrise.”
“My daughter is alive.”
“I know.”
Eleanor stood.
“You know?”
Bale froze.
The two words opened something between them.
He recovered.
“I know now.”
“Choose your next sentence carefully.”
“I was told before I came.”
“By Victor.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor watched him.
Bale had negotiated her husband’s estate. He had settled disputes among cousins, former employees, business partners, one furious neighbor, two ex-spouses, and a museum that believed a Vance loan agreement entitled it to a painting permanently.
He had been in her home on Christmas morning.
He had held her coat at Celeste’s memorial service that afternoon.
“Did you know before tonight?”
“No.”
She believed him.
Not because she trusted him.
Because fear looked different on Bale than deceit.
Detective Ortiz stepped into the corridor.
“Mrs. Vance?”
Eleanor turned.
“Ms. Carter is going to the hospital.”
“Celeste.”
Ortiz looked at her.
“My daughter’s name is Celeste Vance.”
“Your daughter identifies herself as Celeste Carter.”
The correction was small.
It hurt.
Ortiz continued, “She has asked that Mia remain with her as long as the hospital permits. We’re arranging for a child-services worker to meet them there.”
“I’ll go.”
Ortiz’s expression remained neutral.
“Ms. Carter asked that you not.”
Eleanor looked toward the open room.
Celeste was sitting on the edge of the bed while a paramedic wrapped a blood pressure cuff into a bag.
Mia had the pale-blue tin case on her lap.
The lid was bent where Eleanor’s heel had struck it.
Eleanor noticed the dent she had added to the older dents.
She had the absurd urge to have it repaired.
She understood immediately that she should not.
“All right,” she said.
Ortiz watched her.
“You can give me a number where we can reach you.”
“You already have it.”
Ortiz waited.
Eleanor almost smiled.
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
She gave the number.
Celeste and Mia came into the corridor.
Victor had been moved upstairs.
Mia stopped when she saw Eleanor.
Celeste did not.
Eleanor stepped aside.
Mia held the tin case against her chest.
“Are they gonna take us back?”
“No,” Eleanor said.
Celeste’s eyes went to hers.
Eleanor corrected herself.
“I don’t believe so. But I can’t promise you what they will do.”
Mia studied her.
That answer seemed to satisfy her more than the first one.
She followed her mother.
Eleanor watched them leave through the service corridor, accompanied by a paramedic and an officer.
Only after the elevator doors closed did she notice that Celeste had been wearing no shoes.
At two fifteen in the morning, the ballroom still smelled faintly of white roses and spilled champagne.
Half the candles had burned themselves out.
The memorial portrait of Celeste remained on the stage.
It showed her at twenty-six, laughing into wind on the deck of a sailboat.
Eleanor stood beneath it.
The guests were gone.
The hired musicians had packed their instruments.
Catering staff moved quietly among the tables.
A young man in a white dinner jacket was kneeling near the marble, picking up broken glass.
The same waiter who had stood beside Victor.
He saw Eleanor watching and stood too quickly.
“Sorry, Mrs. Vance.”
“For what?”
He looked down at the glass.
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor nodded.
“That makes two of us.”
She walked to the cocktail table where the tin case had struck.
One leg had a fresh pale scratch.
She touched it.
Behind her, Victor said, “You called the board.”
Eleanor turned.
He had removed his bow tie.
The top button of his shirt was open.
It made him look younger and more dangerous at the same time.
“How do you know?”
“Because Caroline called me.”
Caroline Wexler chaired the independent directors of Vance Capital.
Eleanor had called her twenty minutes earlier and told her there was a family emergency involving Victor and that he should be suspended from operational authority pending review.
Caroline had asked whether Eleanor was making an accusation.
Eleanor had said she did not yet know.
Caroline had said suspension without facts would create legal exposure.
Eleanor had replied, “Then create less exposure than leaving him in charge.”
Apparently Caroline had called Victor afterward.
He walked farther into the ballroom.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You kept your sister in a locked room.”
“She was not a prisoner.”
“The door opened with a card in your pocket.”
“There are staff-access controls throughout this building.”
“Could she leave?”
“Not safely.”
May you like
“That is not what I asked.”
Victor looked at the giant photograph over the stage.
