Chương 3
Adrien came closer. He did not touch the pendant either.
“This design appears in photographs,” he said. “It could have been copied.”
“It was made from a piece of amber my mother brought from the Baltic after the war,” Vivienne said. “The flaw near the upper ray resembles a crack but is internal. There.”
Mara looked down. She had always thought the narrow black line was a scratch.
“My son wore it from the age of sixteen,” Vivienne continued. “He refused to wear the family signet ring. He said rings made his fingers feel trapped.”
A small, unwilling smile touched her mouth and vanished.
Mara remembered Emil complaining about rings too. He had removed his wedding band after his wife died and kept it on the same chain as a motel key. For years, Mara had thought that was what mourning looked like: not tears, but a brass key rubbing against gold.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
Vivienne’s answer came too quickly. “The truth.”
“That usually means something else.”
Adrien looked at Mara with the first hint of interest not connected to the pendant.
Vivienne leaned back. “You are right. I want to know whether you are my granddaughter. I want to know what Emil did, why he vanished, and what happened to my son. I want twenty-two years returned to me, which is not possible. Since it is not possible, I would settle for one honest hour.”
Mara stood.
The auction paddles knocked again on the tray.
“I need to go.”
“Please,” Vivienne said.
Mara paused.
The word seemed difficult for the countess, not because she lacked manners but because she was accustomed to requests being treated as instructions.
“I cannot do this while wearing an apron,” Mara said.
Adrien glanced toward the service door. “We can arrange for you to change.”
“I mean I cannot answer questions about my father while I’m working for people who can fire me.”
“No one will fire you,” Vivienne said.
Mrs. Dalca’s muffled voice sounded beyond the door, arguing with someone in the corridor.
Mara almost laughed. “You don’t know my agency.”
Vivienne stood too. “Then come tomorrow.”
“I have another shift.”
“Cancel it.”
“I need the money.”
The countess stopped.
It was the first time that evening she looked at Mara and seemed to see something beyond the pendant.
“Of course,” she said. “Then come when you are able.”
Adrien removed a card from his inner pocket and placed it on the tray between paddles fourteen and sixty-two.
“My direct number,” he said. “Do not speak to reporters.”
“I don’t know any reporters.”
“You may by morning.”
He was right.
At 6:12 the next day, Mara woke to twenty-seven missed calls and a photograph of herself standing over the kneeling countess.
The image was blurred, but the pendant shone clearly against her apron. A guest had posted it with the caption: BELLAVERE AUCTION HALTED AFTER COUNTESS RECOGNIZES LOST HEIRLOOM ON SERVER.
By seven, three regional news sites had copied the post. By eight, one had identified Mara through the staffing agency’s social media photographs. A television van waited outside the apartment building before she finished brushing her teeth.
Her roommate, Jo Alvarez, stood at the kitchen window in a robe, eating dry cereal from the box.
“There are two cameras and a man with hair that would survive a hurricane,” Jo said. “He’s talking to Mrs. Feldman.”
Mara came out of the bathroom wearing jeans and Emil’s old gray sweater. “Why would he talk to Mrs. Feldman?”
“Because she has never met a microphone she didn’t consider family.”
From the sidewalk below, their elderly neighbor pointed toward the third-floor window.
Jo stepped away. “She has betrayed us.”
Mara’s phone rang again. The staffing agency.
She let it ring.
“You should answer,” Jo said.
“I know what they’re going to say.”
“Then make them spend the breath.”
Mara accepted the call.
Mrs. Dalca did not greet her. “You are not to report to the hotel today.”
“I assumed.”
“You violated confidentiality.”
“She asked me my father’s name.”
“You caused a disturbance at a client event.”
“The countess caused the disturbance.”
Jo pointed approvingly with the cereal box.
Mrs. Dalca lowered her voice. “Do not be clever. Bellavere has not filed a complaint, but the agency cannot place you while this attention continues.”
“So I’m suspended.”
“Temporarily.”
“Paid?”
“You know the answer.”
Mara looked at the overdue electricity notice beneath a magnet on the refrigerator. “Then say fired.”
“You are not fired.”
“Can I accept another job?”
“Not through us.”
“Then I’m fired.”
She ended the call before Mrs. Dalca could preserve the distinction.
Jo held out the cereal box. Mara took a handful and ate without tasting it.
“What now?” Jo asked.
Mara looked toward the bedroom. The pendant lay on her dresser where she had placed it before showering. She had considered putting it in a drawer, then felt guilty, as though removing it during trouble would amount to abandoning Emil.
“My father left a box,” she said.
“What kind of box?”
“A metal one. Papers, I think. I never went through everything.”
“You’ve had eight months.”
“I know.”
“Where is it?”
“At his house.”
The small house outside Glens Falls had remained empty since Emil’s death. Mara paid the taxes and minimum utilities from the little money he had left, telling herself she would decide what to do when she had time. In truth, she had avoided the place because the air inside still carried his laundry soap and the medicinal sweetness of the protein drinks he hated.
Jo set down the cereal. “We should go before the television hair learns to climb fire escapes.”
May you like
They left through the basement laundry room. Mara wore a baseball cap and kept the pendant beneath her sweater, though the chain remained visible at the back of her neck.
The drive north took forty minutes. Bare trees lined the highway. Jo talked about meaningless things until Mara’s hands stopped gripping the steering wheel so tightly. A man at her coffee shop had ordered an iced drink in freezing weather. The building superintendent had finally replaced the dryer that burned everyone’s towels. Jo’s cousin had become engaged to a woman the family disliked because she corrected people’s pronunciation of “bruschetta.”
