Part 4
“Journalists are dramatic.”
“Mara.”
The way he said her name made her feel twelve years old and dishonest.
She pressed two fingers against the bridge of her nose.
“I found evidence that someone altered documents.”
“At the billionaire mausoleum?”
“It’s a villa.”
“It has a private library with ladders no one uses. It’s a mausoleum.”
“I confronted the person.”
“You confronted a billionaire?”
“He isn’t a billionaire personally.”
“That distinction is comforting.”
“Noah.”
“What did he do?”
Mara watched the nurse adjust the plastic water pitcher on the bedside table. The nurse did it twice, though it had been straight the first time.
“I got hurt.”
Silence.
Not the dramatic silence of someone shocked into speechlessness. Noah’s silences were active. She could almost hear him walking through his apartment, opening his laptop, finding his passport.
“Do not book a flight,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You type loudly.”
“I’m looking at flights.”
“Don’t.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Are you lying?”
“Not precisely.”
“That is the family motto.”
Their father used to say that when Mara corrected details no one else considered important. Not precisely, she would insist. He had teased her until the phrase became affectionate, then painful, then something she and Noah avoided after his death.
Noah’s voice softened.
“Do you need me?”
Mara looked at the empty visitor’s chair.
“Yes.”
She hated the word as soon as it left her mouth.
Noah stopped typing.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll come.”
She stayed that night in a small guest apartment owned by Lucien’s law firm. It was clean, anonymous, and decorated with framed photographs of mountains taken by someone who did not particularly like mountains. Lucien’s assistant had returned with trousers.
Mara showered carefully, keeping the adhesive strips dry. Dust from the library disappeared down the drain. The burgundy dress had been sealed in a clear evidence bag and taken by the clinic liaison after Mara filed a formal complaint with the police.
She had almost refused to file.
The officer who interviewed her was patient but precise. He asked what she remembered before finding herself on the floor. Mara described entering the library, confronting Adrian with the altered annex, hearing him accuse her of stealing, and then a gap.
“Did he strike you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you see the riding crop used?”
“No.”
“Did anyone threaten you directly?”
“He told me I would regret entering the archive.”
“Before or after you were injured?”
“Before.”
“Was Ms. Armand present?”
“Yes.”
“Did she intervene?”
“No.”
“Did she witness what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
The officer asked whether alcohol or medication had affected Mara’s memory. She said no. He asked whether she had a personal relationship with Adrian. She said no. He asked whether she stood to gain from changes to the inheritance.
Mara laughed, then winced.
“I earn a salary.”
He did not smile.
By the time the interview ended, the truth felt thin and provisional. It existed, but it had to survive forms, timestamps, competing statements, legal definitions, and the simple fact that Mara could not account for several crucial seconds.
In the guest apartment, she heated canned soup and forgot to eat it. She sat at the kitchen table in one of the borrowed sweaters, listening to rain tap the metal vent above the stove.
At ten, an encrypted message arrived from the Bellmont archive system.
ACCESS LOG REVIEW COMPLETE.
She opened the attached report.
Her credentials had disabled the library cameras at 9:14 p.m. Her credentials had accessed the restricted inheritance folder at 9:19. Her credentials had initiated an attempted external copy at 9:23.
Mara had arrived at the villa at 9:31.
She read the times twice.
Then she noticed the device identifier.
The login had come from Terminal A-3, a workstation in the archive office.
Her office.
She called Lucien.
He answered without greeting.
“I’m reading it.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“I know.”
“My office requires a key card after six.”
“Your card was used at eight fifty-eight.”
“My card was in my wallet.”
“Was it?”
Mara looked toward the coat hanging by the door. Her wallet sat in the inside pocket.
She crossed the room and opened it.
The archive key card was missing.
Her stomach tightened.
“When did you last use it?” Lucien asked.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Where?”
“The staff entrance.”
“After that?”
“I had coffee with Elise in the conservation room. Then I went home to change before the gathering.”
“Where was your bag?”
“In my office.”
“Locked?”
“The door was open.”
Lucien exhaled.
Elise Kramer was Mara’s assistant, twenty-four, brilliant with damaged paper, chronically late, and afraid of Adrian in a way she disguised as dislike. She had remained at the villa after Mara left to prepare place cards for the private gathering.
“Elise had access,” Lucien said.
“So did half the archive staff.”
“Half the staff did not stay late.”
Mara stared at the empty card slot in her wallet.
“Elise wouldn’t help Adrian.”
“People help powerful men for many reasons.”
“She hates him.”
“That is not the same as being safe from him.”
Mara hung up and called Elise.
The call went to voicemail.
She tried again.
Then she sent a message.
Please tell me where you are.
No answer came.
Noah arrived the next afternoon wearing the same brown corduroy jacket he had owned since graduate school. He looked exhausted, angry, and slightly lost outside the Geneva train station.
Mara waited near the taxi stand with a scarf pulled low over the bruise on her cheek. When he saw her, he stopped walking.
She had prepared several things to say. A joke about his jacket. A complaint about the flight. A warning not to treat her like a patient.
Instead, Noah crossed the pavement and held her with such care that she began crying into his shoulder.
It embarrassed her immediately.
May you like
He did not mention it.
On the taxi ride, he watched the city pass outside the window. Bicycles shone with rain. People hurried beneath umbrellas. A woman in a red coat dragged a reluctant terrier across a tram line.
