Chương 5
“You could have asked me.”
“I should have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Evelyn looked directly at her. “Because the company is refinancing a substantial portion of its debt. A formal investigation before closing would have created questions that might have endangered the transaction.”
Claire let out a small sound.
There it was: not ignorance, not innocence, but timing.
“You waited.”
“Yes.”
“And while you waited, they put my name on it.”
“I did not authorize that.”
“You gave them room.”
Evelyn accepted the accusation without defending herself. Claire found that more unsettling than denial.
“What happens if the refinancing fails?” Claire asked.
“Properties may have to be sold quickly. Employees may lose jobs. Lenders will gain leverage. The family will lose control of portions of the company.”
“The family.”
“Do not pretend the employees are imaginary because my family also benefits.”
“I’m not.”
“Good. Adrienne has used employees as moral decoration for years. I have no patience for it from anyone else.”
Claire looked toward the tall windows. Beyond the gray-beige curtains, the estate grounds were black. Rain ticked faintly against the glass, so light she had not noticed it before.
“Julian said he was trying to keep me out of it.”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
“That sounds like him.”
“What does that mean?”
“He considers concealment a form of protection when honesty would require courage.”
“He learned that somewhere.”
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly.
Claire looked back at her.
“From you?”
“From all of us.”
The room settled around them.
Evelyn opened a drawer and removed a plain white card. She wrote a name and telephone number.
“Rina Patel. Employment and corporate disputes. She has never represented Vale House or anyone in this family.”
“You just happen to know an independent lawyer?”
“I know many lawyers.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“It was not intended to be.”
Evelyn slid the card across the desk.
Claire did not pick it up.
“What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“No one in this family wants only one thing.”
Evelyn’s gaze remained on her.
“I want the truth before Adrienne decides which version of it will survive.”
“And after that?”
“I want to protect the company.”
“Even from what you did?”
A shadow crossed Evelyn’s face. “Yes.”
Claire leaned back. Her body had begun to ache in places that had seemed fine downstairs. The left side of her hip was sore. She wondered whether bruises were already forming beneath the sweatpants.
“You said they would kneel.”
“I did.”
“What did you mean?”
“I meant they will no longer stand above you.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“No.”
“Did you mean it literally?”
Evelyn looked almost surprised. “Would that matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want Adrienne on the floor. I wanted her to take her hands off me.”
Evelyn’s fingers became still.
Claire continued. “And I don’t want Julian afraid of you. I wanted him to care that I was afraid.”
The older woman looked down at the floral brooch pinned to her dress. She touched one silver petal, an unconscious movement Claire had seen only once before, at the funeral of Evelyn’s younger sister.
“You are asking for more difficult things,” Evelyn said.
“I know.”
“Fear is easier.”
“I know that too.”
The rain became audible for several seconds, then softened again.
Evelyn stood and walked to a cabinet built into the shelves. She removed a small portable printer still sealed in its box.
Claire stared.
“The house internet is monitored through the company network,” Evelyn said. “This uses a cellular connection.”
“You keep an emergency printer in the library?”
“I am old, not unprepared.”
Despite everything, Claire laughed. It was brief and ugly and ended in a breath that hurt her ribs.
Evelyn set the printer on the desk.
“Send copies of your messages and account alerts to yourself. Then print them. Do not forward company material you are not entitled to possess. Do not guess. Do not edit. Do not delete anything else.”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“I have paid enough of them to learn the verbs.”
Claire picked up Rina Patel’s card.
At one in the morning, she called the number.
She expected voicemail. A woman answered on the fourth ring with a cautious hello.
Claire apologized for the hour.
“Are you in immediate danger?” Rina asked.
Claire looked toward the locked library door. Evelyn had left twenty minutes earlier after giving her the room and taking neither the folder nor the printer.
“I don’t know.”
“Is anyone threatening to hurt you right now?”
“No.”
“Can you leave safely?”
“I think so.”
“Do you have identification, medication, keys, and access to money that is solely yours?”
Claire looked at the overnight bag.
“Identification and keys.”
“Money?”
“Four hundred dollars in a joint account. Maybe sixty in my wallet.”
“Do you have a personal credit card?”
“No.”
The admission embarrassed her. Julian had added her as an authorized user on his card after the wedding. She had closed her own account because he said the annual fee was wasteful.
Rina did not comment.
“Do you have somewhere to stay that the family does not control?”
Claire thought of Naomi Alvarez, her former colleague at the Metropolitan Costume Institute, who lived with a loud terrier in a narrow Queens apartment and had once told Claire she could sleep on the kitchen floor if Julian ever became too exhausting.
They had not spoken in two months.
“Yes,” Claire said.
“Call that person. Do not explain everything by text. Ask whether you can come. Use your own transportation account if possible. If not, have your friend arrange it. Photograph your injuries. Email the photos to an account only you can access. Change your email and phone passwords from a device you trust.”
“My company laptop is locked.”
“Do not use it.”
“There are documents on it.”
“We can discuss documents later. Tonight is about your safety and preserving what you already lawfully have.”
May you like
Claire looked at the cream folder.
“There’s a separation agreement they tried to make me sign.”
