Chương 2
“The Beaumont Hotel.”
“What happened?”
Mara turned her head.
The ballroom had broken into small islands of conversation. Guests spoke into phones or to one another in voices that were too quiet to understand. Two uniformed police officers stood near the central doors. Nolan was beside the bar with his father, Russell Avery, and a woman Mara recognized as the family attorney. The crystal glass had finally left Nolan’s hand. It sat on the bar, guarded by no one.
Adrian stood at the marble table with the black case open. One officer examined the screen while the other wrote in a small notebook.
“What happened?” the paramedic asked again.
Mara swallowed.
“He pushed me.”
Across the room, Nolan turned toward her as if he had heard.
Perhaps he had. The ballroom carried sound strangely. Music could become intimate at the far wall while a whispered insult beside the dance floor traveled all the way to the doors.
The paramedic asked about the bruise beneath Mara’s eye.
“That was earlier.”
“Same person?”
Mara stared at the underside of the chandelier. Hundreds of cut crystals trembled slightly from the ventilation system.
“Yes.”
The paramedic’s expression did not change, but her hands became gentler.
Russell Avery approached before the police could stop him.
He was a broad man in his early sixties with silver hair and the heavy, deliberate posture of someone accustomed to having a room reorganize itself when he entered. The Avery family owned commercial properties, private clinics, and enough regional television advertising to make their name feel less like a name than a weather condition.
Russell stopped six feet from Mara.
“This was an accident,” he said.
The female officer stepped between them. “Sir, you need to stay back.”
“I’m speaking to Ms. Ellison.”
“No, you aren’t.”
Russell looked over the officer’s shoulder. “Mara, everyone here understands emotions were high. Nolan regrets that you lost your balance.”
Mara noticed he knew her first name.
She had played at three Avery Foundation dinners over the past two years. He had never used it before.
“I didn’t lose my balance.”
Russell’s jaw shifted.
The family attorney touched his elbow. She wore a navy evening dress under a long black coat and had the tired eyes of someone whose work often began after other people stopped behaving.
“Russell,” she said, “not now.”
Nolan remained by the bar. Without the glass, his right hand looked awkward. He pressed it flat against his stomach, then adjusted his bow tie.
The bride stood ten feet from him.
Mara had almost forgotten Claire.
She wore a narrow white satin gown with a cathedral-length train gathered over one arm. A lace veil had been removed after the ceremony and lay crumpled on a nearby chair. Claire’s face was calm in the way faces sometimes became calm when everything underneath them had gone rigid.
Nolan took one step toward her.
Claire stepped back.
It was a small movement. Several guests saw it.
Nolan saw them seeing it.
“Claire,” he said.
She looked at Mara instead.
Mara expected accusation. She expected the expression of a woman whose wedding had been destroyed by a hired musician who had refused to keep playing.
Claire’s eyes settled on the bruise beneath Mara’s eye.
Then she looked away.
The police separated witnesses into different parts of the ballroom. The decision offended Russell, who demanded to know whether anyone understood the reputational damage being created by treating his guests like suspects. One officer told him reputational damage was not a police category.
Mr. Levin was taken to a velvet bench near the stage. Luis and the second attendant, Denise, waited beside the doors. Guests shifted as officers assigned them chairs and instructed them not to discuss what they had seen.
They discussed it anyway.
“I only saw her fall.”
“He had his hand out.”
“She provoked him.”
“What could she possibly have said?”
“Did anyone save the livestream?”
“There wasn’t supposed to be a livestream.”
“I heard she was recording him.”
“Why?”
The questions multiplied faster than answers.
The ballroom no longer looked exclusive. It looked tired. Wineglasses stood abandoned beside folded napkins. Melted ice slid down the sides of silver buckets. The six-tier wedding cake leaned almost imperceptibly to the left because the staff member responsible for rotating it had been called away.
The paramedics wanted Mara taken to the hospital. She argued that she could walk.
When she tried, her knees folded.
Adrian caught her before she reached the floor. This time the contact made her angry.
“I said I can stand.”
“You also nodded the first time,” he said.
“I was trying not to humiliate myself.”
“That part is over.”
She stared at him.
His expression softened by less than an inch. “I mean the choice was taken from you. Not that you did anything humiliating.”
“You should work on how you say things.”
“I’m aware.”
The paramedic guided Mara onto a stretcher.
Adrian picked up the black case.
“Where is that going?” Mara asked.
“With Officer Bennett. I’ll sign it into evidence with her.”
“Both recorders?”
“Both.”
“You checked the cards?”
“Yes.”
“The backup?”
“Yes.”
“The internal time code?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
Adrian bent nearer. “The original is intact.”
“You said that in there.”
“I’m saying it again because you’re scared.”
“I’m not—”
Her voice broke.
Adrian waited.
Mara looked toward Nolan. He had moved closer to Claire, speaking in quick, low sentences. Claire’s face remained turned away. Russell stood behind his son with one hand on Nolan’s shoulder, not comforting him so much as keeping him in position.
“I’m not scared of the video disappearing,” Mara said.
Adrian followed her gaze.
May you like
“No,” he said. “I know.”
The ambulance took Mara to St. Vincent’s, where the emergency room television showed a college basketball game with the sound muted. A nurse cut away the torn inner lining of her gown to examine her shoulder. The dress had been loaned by the event planner because the Beaumont required featured musicians to match the formality of the reception. Mara had spent the entire afternoon worried she would spill coffee on it.
