Chương 3
Call plumber Thursday.
For one second Madeline could see Joanna at the kitchen counter in Connecticut, a scarf tied over hair that had not yet completely fallen out, irritated because the upstairs toilet kept running.
The memory was so ordinary it hurt worse than the funeral.
Madeline folded the receipt carefully.
“Do you want to stop?” Nora asked.
“No.”
They kept going.
Near midnight, Madeline found the probate inventory.
She almost missed the line.
Personal jewelry retained under separate custodial agreement.
There was a reference number.
No list.
No names.
No ring.
But attached to the back was a letter from a law firm.
Harlan, Marks & Vale.
Madeline read the names again.
Vale.
Something moved faintly in her memory.
Her mother answering a phone while Madeline did algebra at the kitchen table.
Celeste, not tonight.
Then laughter.
Not angry laughter.
Tired laughter.
Madeline turned the page.
The letter was signed by Celeste Vale.
Nora leaned closer.
“Do you know her?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a weird answer.”
“I recognize the name.”
“From where?”
“My mother.”
Madeline’s phone buzzed.
Both women looked at it.
Unknown number.
Nora said, “Speaker.”
Madeline answered.
“Who are you?”
The same calm voice said, “Did you look?”
“At the ring?”
“At your mother’s records.”
Madeline sat straighter.
Nora’s eyes narrowed.
“How did you know I had them?”
“I didn’t.”
“You knew my mother.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
A short pause.
“Celeste.”
Madeline looked at the letter in her hand.
“Celeste Vale?”
Silence.
Nora mouthed, Oh my God.
Madeline stood.
“You signed something in my mother’s probate file.”
“I did.”
“What was the custodial agreement?”
“Jewelry. Some letters. Two boxes of documents Joanna did not want kept in your father’s house.”
“Why?”
“That is a conversation you should have with your father.”
“No. You called me. You tell me.”
“I can tell you what I know. I won’t tell you what Joanna felt when she isn’t here to correct me.”
“You said you’re Adrian’s wife.”
“I said he paid for my funeral.”
“Are you his wife?”
“I was.”
Madeline gripped the phone.
“Was?”
“We are divorced.”
“When?”
“Eighteen months ago.”
Madeline closed her eyes.
She and Adrian had met fourteen months ago.
“Then why did he tell me you were dead?”
“I can’t answer for him.”
“You called yourself the woman whose funeral he paid for.”
“He held a memorial service after I disappeared.”
“Disappeared where?”
“Away from him.”
Madeline opened her eyes.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s the part I’m willing to give you tonight.”
Nora made a face of disbelief.
Madeline ignored her.
“Did he hurt you?”
Celeste did not answer immediately.
When she did, her voice remained level.
“I believed I was not safe with him.”
“That could mean anything.”
“Yes.”
“Did he try to kill you?”
“No.”
The directness surprised Madeline.
Celeste continued. “He did things I should have left over long before I finally did. He forged my name on a loan document. He lied about debt. He went through private files that were not his. He used information he found there to make himself useful to people.”
Madeline looked down at the probate letter.
“People like me?”
“Yes.”
Nora whispered a curse.
Madeline walked into the kitchen.
“Why didn’t you call me before tonight?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I sent a letter to your office.”
“I never got it.”
“Three weeks ago, I called your assistant.”
“My assistant is Nora. She’s sitting here.”
Nora held out both hands.
Celeste said, “Not your museum assistant. Adrian’s office told me they handled your engagement correspondence.”
Madeline felt heat move through her chest.
Adrian’s executive assistant, Rachel, had indeed taken over vendor coordination after the engagement because Madeline had complained about being buried in planning emails.
Celeste went on.
“Last week I sent a registered envelope to your apartment.”
Madeline looked toward the entry hall.
“I didn’t receive it.”
“I know. It was signed for downstairs, then returned to me yesterday as refused.”
Madeline’s building staff did not refuse registered mail for residents.
Nora was already opening her laptop.
Madeline said, “How did Adrian get my mother’s ring?”
“He took it from me.”
“When?”
“Before I left.”
“Why did you have it?”
“Joanna gave it to me.”
The kitchen seemed suddenly too bright, though Madeline had turned on only the light above the stove.
“She gave you her engagement ring?”
“It was not her engagement ring.”
Madeline waited.
Celeste said, “Your mother bought it for herself.”
Madeline sat down.
That sounded like Joanna.
Madeline could remember her father complaining once that Joanna had bought herself flowers because he had forgotten their anniversary, and Joanna saying, Somebody in this house had to remember.
“What was I supposed to do with it?”
“Nothing until you were older.”
“How much older?”
“Thirty.”
Madeline looked at Nora.
Her thirtieth birthday was seven months away.
“Why thirty?”
“Because Joanna chose thirty.”
“Why not eighteen? Twenty-one?”
“She said at eighteen you would still be asking permission from whoever scared you most.”
Madeline’s throat tightened.
“At twenty-one?”
“She said you would confuse disobedience with independence.”
Nora looked away.
“And at thirty?”
Celeste exhaled softly.
“She hoped you would know the difference.”
Madeline pressed her fingers to her forehead.
The sentence sounded cruel enough to have come from her mother.
Not cruel in intention.
Cruel in accuracy.
“Where are you?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Are you afraid Adrian will find you?”
“I know Adrian can find people when he is motivated.”
“Then why call me?”
“Because I saw the engagement photograph.”
“The one in the paper?”
“Yes.”
“You recognized the ring.”
“Yes.”
Madeline stared at the dark window over the sink.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Adrian did not meet you by accident.”
The apartment went quiet.
Even Nora stopped typing.
Madeline said, “We met at a museum dinner.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“I found the folder missing after I left him.”
“What folder?”
May you like
“Your mother’s.”
Madeline stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor.
