Part 4
Nora gave him a tired look. “That sentence sounds better in this room than it will at nine tomorrow morning.”
Julian almost smiled, but the expression did not complete itself.
“You haven’t changed as much as I expected.”
“I have.”
“In what way?”
“I no longer confuse good intentions with courage.”
The words landed between them.
Julian nodded once. “Fair.”
Daniel opened the door.
Nora followed him through the penthouse. They passed guests who became suddenly interested in their drinks. Someone asked whether everything was all right. Daniel said, “Excuse us,” without slowing.
At the elevator, Nora caught sight of Elise coming down the hall.
“Nora.”
Daniel pressed the call button again though it was already illuminated.
Elise stopped six feet away. Up close, her shock had settled into something less clean. Embarrassment. Calculation. Fear.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Nora watched her.
“For what?”
“For what happened.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Elise glanced toward the reception. “He has never done anything like that.”
“You mean where you could see it?”
Her eyes flinched.
The elevator arrived.
Daniel stepped inside. Nora remained in the doorway.
Elise lowered her voice. “What did you mean about everyone learning what he did?”
“Ask him.”
“He says you’re trying to blackmail him.”
“With what demand?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Then it isn’t blackmail.”
The elevator doors began to close. Nora pressed the open button.
Elise rubbed her thumb along the seam of her dress. “I know about the Saint Alder settlement.”
“Do you?”
“I know you received money.”
“So does anyone with access to the board files.”
“I also know Grant kept copies of project records after the legal hold was lifted.”
Nora did not move.
Daniel looked past her at Elise.
“What kind of records?” he asked.
Elise shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You brought it up,” Nora said. “You know something.”
“I know he has an encrypted drive he moves between the office and the house in Lake Geneva.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked him why he carried it, and he told me it contained insurance documents. Then I saw Saint Alder in a folder name when he opened it.”
The hallway seemed to narrow around them.
“When?” Nora asked.
“Last winter.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Elise gave a quiet, humorless laugh. “To whom? His uncle? The board? You?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know you.”
“You knew a man died.”
“I knew what the newspapers said.”
“And that was enough?”
“No.” Elise’s voice sharpened, then dropped again. “It was convenient.”
The elevator alarm chimed.
Daniel pressed the open button from inside.
Elise looked over her shoulder.
“He’ll move it tonight,” she said.
Nora studied her face. “Are you warning me or trying to get me to steal it?”
“I’m telling you what he’ll do.”
“Why?”
Elise’s eyes went toward the rooftop doors. “Because I put my hand on his arm out there, and for one second I thought he was going to do the same thing to me.”
The elevator doors closed between them.
In the mirrored box, Nora saw herself from angles she did not recognize. The sleek ponytail had loosened. Her left shoulder sat lower than the right. A faint red mark had appeared along her upper arm where Grant’s fingers had pressed through the fabric.
Daniel looked at it.
“Take a picture.”
She turned toward him.
“Now,” he said. “Before it fades.”
She took out her phone and handed it to him.
He photographed both arms, her hip where the gown concealed the beginning of a bruise, and the red scrape on her heel. His movements were careful and impersonal.
When he gave the phone back, Nora said, “I’m sorry.”
He stared at the elevator numbers.
“For which part?”
“I should have told you.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down.”
She leaned against the mirrored wall and immediately straightened when pain flared.
Daniel saw.
“You need to be examined.”
“I don’t need an emergency room for a bruise.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know my body.”
“Do you?”
The elevator descended in silence.
On the forty-second floor, an older couple stepped in. The woman wore a green silk wrap and carried a tiny silver purse. She smiled at Daniel, then noticed Nora’s expression and looked away.
They rode together for twenty floors while soft music played through hidden speakers.
At the lobby, Daniel guided Nora toward the revolving door but did not touch her. Their driver waited at the curb. The summer air had cooled, carrying the smell of lake water and car exhaust.
In the back seat, Daniel gave the driver their address and raised the privacy screen.
Nora watched the penthouse recede between buildings.
“You didn’t tell me Paul’s widow contacted you,” Daniel said.
“She didn’t contact me exactly.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Reduce the truth until it fits the sentence you already gave me.”
She looked down at her hands.
The engagement ring on her left hand caught light from passing streetlamps. Daniel had proposed in their kitchen in Boston while she was wearing one sock and holding a bag of frozen peas against a sprained ankle. She had laughed because he had hidden the ring inside a coffee tin and forgotten which one. There had been nothing cinematic about it. She had trusted the ordinariness.
“I was going to tell you after I met Julian,” she said.
“You told me he wanted to apologize.”
“He did.”
“You told me the reception was social.”
“It was supposed to be.”
“You packed Paul Renner’s note in your handbag.”
Nora looked at him.
Daniel’s expression was tired rather than triumphant. “I saw the envelope when you changed purses.”
“I didn’t want you involved until I knew whether Julian would help.”
“You asked me to fly to Chicago, attend a Mercer reception, and stand beside you while you confronted the man who destroyed your career.”
“I didn’t plan to confront him.”
“He confronted you because he knew why you were there.”
May you like
“I didn’t know he knew.”
“But you knew it was possible.”
