Part 5
Noah rubbed his thumb against the frayed cuff of his jacket.
“You always said those people were strange,” he said.
“They are strange.”
“You never said dangerous.”
“I didn’t think they were.”
“That man stood over you with a weapon.”
“He didn’t use it.”
“That’s your defense?”
“It’s a fact.”
“It’s an object people use to hit horses.”
“Some people use them for training.”
“Excellent. I feel better.”
The taxi driver glanced at them in the mirror.
Mara lowered her voice.
“I need you not to turn this into something simple.”
Noah looked at her.
“A man hurt you.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“A man admitted committing fraud while you were injured on the floor.”
“Yes.”
“That feels simple.”
“It won’t be.”
He turned back to the window.
After a moment he said, “Dad would have gone after him.”
“Dad once apologized to a parking meter.”
“He would have gone after him politely.”
Their father had worked for the Bellmont family for nineteen years as an accountant in the shipping division. When Mara was seventeen, he was accused of authorizing improper payments to a supplier. He denied it, but resigned before the investigation concluded. No charges were filed. No public statement cleared him.
He never found comparable work again.
The family did not destroy him in a dramatic way. They simply allowed suspicion to occupy the space where his reputation had been.
Mara had accepted the archive position twelve years later partly because she wanted to prove that the Bellmont name had no power over her.
She had never admitted that to Noah.
At the guest apartment, he unpacked three shirts, a paperback novel, a portable phone charger, and a box of macaroni and cheese from the United States.
“You brought this across an ocean?”
“You said Swiss groceries make everything taste responsible.”
“They do.”
“You need yellow powder.”
Mara sat at the table while he filled a pot with water. The domestic stupidity of the meal almost broke her again.
Her phone rang.
Elise’s name appeared on the screen.
Mara answered immediately.
“Elise?”
A breath.
Then, “I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Are you safe?”
“I think so.”
Noah turned off the faucet and watched Mara.
“What happened to my key card?” Mara asked.
Elise began crying quietly.
Not dramatic sobs. Small breaths she was trying to suppress.
“He said it was for an audit.”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“Say his name.”
“I can’t.”
“Elise.”
“He knew about my visa.”
Mara looked at Noah. He could not hear the other side, but he saw the change in her face.
“What about your visa?”
“There was a mistake in my application. My old employer listed the wrong dates, and I signed it without noticing. Adrian said the family’s attorneys could report it as fraud.”
“Could they?”
“I don’t know. He showed me a letter.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
“Give him your card for an hour. He said he needed to check whether you had copied private correspondence.”
Mara gripped the phone.
“You gave it to him.”
“I put it in your desk before I left.”
“It isn’t there.”
“I put it back.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Around nine twenty.”
The timeline shifted in Mara’s mind.
Adrian had used the card at eight fifty-eight, accessed her office, disabled the cameras, and returned the card before Mara arrived. If Elise was telling the truth, someone had taken it again afterward.
“Did you see anyone near my office?”
“No.”
“Did Celeste come downstairs?”
A pause.
“I saw her by the conservation room.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Nine fifteen, maybe.”
“What was she doing?”
“She said she was looking for the powder room.”
“The powder room is upstairs.”
“I told her.”
“And?”
“She smiled.”
Mara heard movement on Elise’s end of the call.
“I have to go.”
“Wait. Adrian is going to blame you.”
“I know.”
“Come to Lucien. He can help.”
“No one can help if they decide I lied on the application.”
“Elise, listen to me. Hiding makes you useful to him.”
“I’m already useful to him.”
The line went dead.
Noah stood beside the stove, one hand still resting on the faucet.
“What did she do?”
“She gave Adrian my key card.”
“Why?”
“He threatened her immigration status.”
Noah looked down.
“People always say they had no choice.”
“She was scared.”
“So were you.”
Mara stared at him.
He flinched.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“At her?”
“At everyone.”
“That isn’t useful.”
“I didn’t fly here to be useful.”
The macaroni water boiled over, hissing against the burner. Noah turned toward it and swore.
Mara almost laughed.
Instead, she pressed her palm against her aching ribs and watched him clean the stove with a dish towel too small for the job.
The second trustee, Beatrice Haldane, requested a meeting the next morning.
Beatrice had spent thirty years in international banking and treated emotion as a liquidity problem. She arrived at Lucien’s office wearing a dark green suit and carrying no visible bag. Her silver hair was cut close to her jaw. She greeted Mara, acknowledged Noah with a nod, and declined coffee.
The third trustee joined by video from London. His name was Thomas Wren. He was younger than the others, only fifty-two, and served as chair of the Bellmont charitable foundation. Behind him, shelves of carefully arranged books suggested a room designed to be seen online.
Lucien closed the conference-room door.
“The purpose of this meeting,” Beatrice began, “is to determine whether an internal preservation measure is required before next week’s succession vote.”
Mara sat at the long table with Noah beside her. Lucien had advised Noah not to speak. Noah had responded by bringing a notebook.
Thomas appeared on the screen.
“We should also determine whether Ms. Voss presents an ongoing confidentiality risk.”
Noah wrote something.
Mara did not look at it.
May you like
“I transmitted the recording only to trustees and counsel,” she said.
“You repurposed a security system without authorization,” Thomas replied.
