Chương 7
Bianca’s hospital room overlooked a loading dock and a row of snow-covered dumpsters. Her hair had been combed but not washed. Without makeup, she looked younger than twenty-eight. Warming blankets covered her to the shoulders. The emerald pendant rested in a plastic belongings bag on the counter.
She watched Camille enter and then looked at the diamond ring.
Marcus remained by the door. Dana took the chair nearest the window.
Bianca said, “I didn’t know you were pregnant when it started.”
Camille almost admired the precision of the sentence.
“You knew by the second month.”
Bianca’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did that stop you?”
“No.”
The monitor beside the bed measured the silence between them.
Camille removed her fur stole and folded it over the back of a chair. The room was too warm, but Bianca shivered once beneath the blankets.
“Where are the pages?”
“In the ballroom.”
Dana leaned forward. “Be specific.”
Bianca looked at Camille, not the lawyer. “The white floral arrangement nearest the west fireplace. There’s a metal frog inside the vase. I wrapped the pages in plastic and pushed them under it.”
“You did that while freezing?”
“Before. Grant gave them to me upstairs. I went down through the service stairs. I hid them, then went back because he said he had the ledger.”
“Why go onto the terrace?”
“Because you came into the bedroom.”
Camille studied her face. “The security video shows you leaving before I entered.”
Bianca glanced at Marcus.
“I heard you in the hall. Grant told me to take the service stairs. I hid the pages, then returned through the ballroom corridor. Eleanor was outside your bedroom. She told me to go through the terrace because guests were coming up the main staircase.”
“And Grant?”
“He followed.”
“Why were you undressed?”
Color rose weakly in Bianca’s cheeks.
“I had changed for him.”
The plainness of it hurt more than apology would have.
Camille sat.
Bianca went on. “Eleanor closed the terrace door behind us.”
Marcus’s gaze sharpened.
“Did she know the latch was broken?” Dana asked.
“She said, ‘Perhaps the cold will teach you discretion.’”
Camille thought of Eleanor’s arm across the glass. Nobody opens it.
“Why didn’t you tell the deputy?”
“I was barely conscious.”
“You’re conscious now,” Dana said.
Bianca looked toward the plastic bag holding her pendant.
“I want immunity.”
Dana laughed once. “From whom?”
“From the company. From the foundation. From whatever Grant did.”
“That isn’t how immunity works.”
“Then I want protection.”
Camille said, “From Grant?”
Bianca’s eyes returned to her.
“From all of you.”
Marcus’s face closed.
Bianca saw it. “Dad, don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Camille had expected hatred to feel cleaner. Instead she saw a frightened woman with blistered toes, a dead mother’s accusation, and a talent for making betrayal sound like research.
“What did Grant promise you?” Camille asked.
“That he would leave you after the baby was born.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Why after?”
“He said a divorce during pregnancy would destroy his standing with the board.”
Grant’s timing had always been excellent. He remembered anniversaries, sent condolence flowers before anyone else, and knew precisely how long to wait before pretending a cruel remark had been misunderstood.
Bianca continued. “He said the marriage was already an arrangement.”
Camille looked at the blanket tucked beneath Bianca’s chin.
“What did you believe?”
“That you knew.”
“At first?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Bianca’s eyes filled but did not spill.
“Later, I believed I deserved what I wanted.”
Marcus looked away.
There was the ugly center of it, finally spoken without perfume.
Dana asked about the ledger. Bianca said Grant had removed it from the safe, photographed several pages, then told her the original would be leverage against Eleanor. He claimed Eleanor had moved charitable funds through North Basin to cover pension losses and private debt. He also claimed Camille’s signatures made her vulnerable enough that she would agree to a quiet divorce.
“He wasn’t protecting you,” Bianca said. “He was planning to make you afraid.”
Camille’s hand went to her belly.
“Where is the ledger now?”
“I don’t know. He still had it when we went outside.”
“He wasn’t wearing a jacket.”
“He put it behind the terrace bar.”
Marcus spoke for the first time. “There is no terrace bar in winter.”
“There’s a cabinet beneath the covered grill station. He shoved it inside before pounding on the door.”
Camille pictured the terrace buried under new snow.
By now, maintenance staff or law enforcement might have moved everything. Or Grant might have recovered it before the ambulance came. The object seemed to recede each time someone named its location.
Dana asked Bianca to make a formal proffer through her own attorney.
“I don’t have one.”
“You will need one.”
“I can’t afford the kind this needs.”
Marcus said, “I’ll pay.”
Bianca looked at him with open anger. “You don’t get to buy your way into being my father.”
The words struck harder than a shout.
Marcus nodded once. “Then I’ll pay without that.”
She turned her face toward the window.
Camille stood.
“Tell the sheriff what Eleanor said at the door.”
Bianca’s expression tightened. “Will you tell them you stood there too?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it hurts you?”
“Yes.”
Bianca watched her as if trying to identify the angle.
Camille understood. In the Sterling world, truth without leverage looked like stupidity.
At the mansion, deputies had already sealed the ballroom and terrace. Dana obtained permission for Camille to identify the vase but not touch it. A forensic technician lifted the white flowers, drained the water, and removed a heavy metal insert from the bottom.
The pages were there, wrapped in a plastic produce bag from the kitchen.
Bianca’s fingers had left faint bloody smears across the plastic.
May you like
The pages themselves contained transfer dates, account numbers, and initials written in Camille’s father’s narrow hand. One line had been underlined twice:
E.S. insists temporary. R.B. says paper can be corrected later. Ask Elise what she saw.
