Chương 4
If he threatens me again, I’m done being polite. I know Daniel will hate that. He can hate me later.
Daniel stopped.
The letter was short.
The last line was worse than everything above it.
Please don’t tell Daniel until I know whether I’m right.
He put the page down.
For a long time he watched the fire.
Claire did not touch him.
That restraint was almost unbearable.
At last Daniel asked, “What did she find?”
Michael’s notebook contained copies of vendor payments from Carter Hospitality’s Alpine Ridge project, a luxury resort development three hours north of Denver that had nearly bankrupted the company before opening. Daniel remembered those years as a series of airports, investor dinners, construction delays, and his father telling everyone not to panic.
The payments were to consulting companies Daniel did not recognize.
Claire explained nothing until he asked.
She had learned that lesson sometime in the previous twenty minutes.
“What are these?”
“Michael thinks they were shell companies.”
“Michael thinks many things.”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone verify them?”
“A forensic accountant looked at the copies.”
Daniel’s head snapped up.
“You hired an accountant?”
“Michael did.”
“Of course.”
“The accountant said the pattern justified further investigation. He didn’t say it proved theft.”
Daniel looked at the pages again.
“Who paid for him?”
“Michael.”
“Does Dad know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so.”
“No.”
Daniel rubbed his cheek again.
It was beginning to ache.
Claire saw the gesture and looked away.
For the first time since the slap, she seemed close to losing control.
Daniel put the papers back on the table.
“I need air.”
Evelyn glanced at the windows.
“The exterior terraces are closed.”
“I’m not jumping off the mountain.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
He walked out of the lounge.
The corridor beyond was nearly empty. A young employee in a burgundy vest was securing a decorative vase to a console table with removable straps, apparently because the building had begun to shudder faintly under wind gusts. He looked at Daniel’s cheek, then immediately looked somewhere else.
Daniel kept walking.
The casino floor was two levels below, but the elevators had been restricted because of the storm. He took the stairs.
Halfway down, he stopped.
His hands had begun to shake.
He sat on a carpeted step.
For eight years he had blamed himself for not answering Rebecca’s last call.
That fact had lived inside him more reliably than any belief about religion or family or marriage.
She had called at 11:07.
Daniel had been in Chicago at a contract dinner. His phone was face down. He saw the missed call at 11:41.
By then she was dead.
He had spent years constructing imaginary versions of the conversation.
Daniel, your father is following me.
Daniel, I’m scared.
Daniel, call me.
Or perhaps nothing important at all.
Can you pick up milk tomorrow?
Did you pay the electric bill?
I hate this weather.
Grief had no respect for probability.
Daniel leaned his elbows on his knees.
The stairwell smelled faintly of carpet cleaner.
A maintenance worker opened the door below, saw him, paused, then said, “You all right, sir?”
Daniel almost gave the automatic answer.
Fine.
Instead he said, “No.”
The man considered this.
“Yeah. Rough night.”
Daniel looked at him.
The worker gestured upward.
“Storm.”
Daniel laughed unexpectedly.
It came out ugly and brief.
“Yeah.”
The worker continued up the stairs.
Daniel remained there another minute.
When he returned to the lounge, Claire was standing by the windows. Evelyn had covered the dessert again.
Daniel wondered why that detail bothered him.
He looked at Evelyn.
“Who changed the log?”
“The night security director.”
“Name.”
“Patrick Weller.”
“Alive?”
“No. He died three years ago.”
“Convenient.”
Evelyn’s face hardened.
“I assure you, sir, his death was not arranged for the convenience of this conversation.”
Claire lowered her head, hiding the beginning of a smile.
Daniel noticed.
For one absurd second, the three of them were simply people in a room where someone had said something dry.
Then it passed.
“What did Weller tell you?”
Evelyn moved to the table.
“At approximately midnight, he came into the service office and asked for the garage log. I told him it was still in use. He removed it anyway. Twenty minutes later he returned with a replacement page.”
“This page?”
“No. The altered version.”
“And you kept the original.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I had already photocopied it.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why had you copied it before he asked?”
Evelyn’s jaw shifted.
“Because Mr. Charles Carter frightened me.”
There was no drama in the sentence.
That made Daniel believe her more than he wanted to.
“How?”
“He returned through the service garage with damage to his vehicle. He had no coat. His left hand was bleeding. He asked whether there were cameras on the lower road.”
Daniel said nothing.
“I told him the property cameras ended at the main gate. He asked who had been working valet. Then he asked whether I had seen Mrs. Carter leave.”
Rebecca.
Mrs. Carter.
Daniel hated hearing her turned into a hotel record.
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
“And?”
“He asked me to forget that.”
Claire moved closer.
Evelyn continued.
“I was forty-nine years old. I had worked in hotels since I was nineteen. I knew rich guests asked employees to forget many things. Mistresses. Drugs. Damage. Political donors. Children who weren’t supposed to be at parties. I also knew when a request wasn’t ordinary.”
“So you copied the log.”
“Yes.”
“Then a woman died and you stayed quiet.”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
This time there was no hiding it.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a coward.”
Claire looked at her.
May you like
Evelyn kept her eyes on Daniel.
“The next morning Mr. Weller told me the sheriff had the relevant records and there had been a single-vehicle accident caused by ice. He said speculation would cost people their jobs. My husband had been unemployed for seven months. My mother was in assisted living. I had two sons in college.”
