Chương 2
Celeste’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Julian took his phone from his waistcoat and handed it to the security guard. “Call 911.”
Celeste stared at him. “You cannot be serious.”
“I want the police. I want an ambulance. I want the west corridor secured, and no one goes near that room until they arrive.”
“Julian.”
“Where is the key?”
She looked down.
The blue satin at her hip had a narrow hidden pocket. Mara had noticed it earlier in the evening when Celeste slipped her phone inside while greeting donors. Now Celeste pressed her hand over that pocket without seeming to know she had done it.
Julian followed the movement.
“Give me the key.”
“It isn’t what they think.”
“Give it to the guard.”
“Can we please speak alone?”
Henry began to cry again, silently at first. Mara felt each breath move through his ribs.
Julian did not look away from Celeste. “Take the key out of your pocket.”
Her fingers shook as she reached into the gown. The brass key was small and old, tied to a cream ribbon.
The security guard accepted it without comment. He placed it inside an empty evidence envelope from the medical kit at his station, folded the top, and wrote the time across the seal.
Celeste watched him do it.
The first guests began leaving through the front doors. Their voices drifted in fragments from the vestibule.
Is someone sick?
I heard a child.
Was that Julian shouting?
Phones appeared in hands before coats had been collected. People lowered their voices while turning their screens toward the marble steps.
Julian looked at the security guard. “Close the interior doors.”
The guard moved quickly.
The last thing Mara saw before the doors shut was a woman in a silver dress pretending not to photograph the blood on Mara’s cuff.
Dr. Renner arrived before the ambulance. He had attended enough Bellweather events to know the side entrance, and he came through the service corridor carrying a leather bag, his bow tie still hanging loose around his neck.
He was nearly seventy, with a stoop that disappeared whenever a child was hurt.
He knelt beside Mara.
“Which one first?”
“Oliver,” she said. “He’s breathing too fast.”
Julian stood behind the doctor, useless and aware of it.
Celeste had moved to the foot of the staircase. The security guard remained between her and the children. She seemed smaller there, though the grand sweep of blue satin still occupied three marble steps.
Dr. Renner spoke to Oliver in a low voice about a toy boat the boy kept in his office. It took several minutes before Oliver allowed the doctor to touch his wrist.
Henry would not release Mara, so the examination happened with him tucked beneath her arm.
The ambulance crew arrived next. Then two police officers. Then another security guard from the estate gate, reporting that reporters had already begun calling.
Julian closed his eyes briefly.
The Bellweather name had survived a century of divorces, business failures, addictions, lawsuits, and one uncle who had tried to land a helicopter on a frozen lake. It had survived because the family never allowed a private disaster to remain uncontrolled long enough to become a public story.
Tonight, the guests had carried the story out with them.
One of the officers, a woman named Sergeant Alvarez, asked Celeste to sit in the library. Celeste refused until Julian said, “Go.”
“You believe her?” Celeste asked, pointing at Mara.
“No,” Julian said. “I believe the boys.”
That was the first time Celeste cried.
Her tears came silently and with such visible astonishment that Mara almost looked away. Celeste had spent eight years being believed before she finished a sentence. Disbelief appeared to wound her more deeply than accusation.
Sergeant Alvarez waited.
Celeste wiped beneath one eye with her little finger, careful not to smear the makeup, and followed the officer into the library.
The boys were taken to the hospital for observation. Julian asked to ride with them. Oliver cried when Mara attempted to stand.
“Don’t go,” he said.
It was the first full sentence he had spoken since she found him.
Mara looked at Julian.
He glanced toward the ambulance doors, then at his son’s hands gripping her apron.
“Come with us,” he said.
Mara’s knees had gone numb from the marble. When she stood, the room tilted. Julian reached toward her elbow, but she pulled away before he touched her.
“I’m all right.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a scratch.”
The truth was that she could not bear anyone’s hand on her. Not yet.
At St. Catherine’s, the twins were given separate rooms across the hall from one another because the emergency department had no room large enough for both beds. Oliver refused to let Mara leave, and Henry refused to be separated from Oliver, so nurses rolled the beds into a curtained treatment bay and pretended not to notice the fire-code problem.
The matching pajamas were removed, labeled, and placed in clear bags. Dust streaked the fabric around the knees and elbows. One sleeve of Henry’s top had a brown stain from where he had wiped his mouth after vomiting.
A nurse offered hospital gowns.
Both boys refused.
Mara sat between the beds while Julian went to speak with the police and the hospital social worker. She could hear the low, controlled rhythm of his voice through the curtain. Every few minutes it broke, then returned steadier.
Oliver slept first. He held two of Mara’s fingers under his chin.
Henry remained awake.
“Are they going to arrest Mother?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Daddy arrests people.”
“Your father doesn’t arrest anyone.”
“He calls people who do.”
Mara studied him. His darker brown hair still held the neat side part Celeste insisted upon, though one section had fallen loose across his forehead.
“Did someone tell you that?”
Henry looked toward the curtain. “Mother said Daddy could make anyone disappear.”
Mara kept her face still.
May you like
“What else did she say tonight?”
He picked at the adhesive edge of the monitor on his finger.
