Chương 3
Lucas flinched.
Nora regretted the sentence as soon as it left her mouth, but did not apologize. Daniel Ashford’s death had been difficult. He had asked her to witness it by degrees, and Lucas had been absent because his father refused to let him come until it was too late.
“He gave me the locket,” she said more quietly, “and a sealed envelope.”
Malcolm’s composure fractured.
“Where is it?”
No one spoke.
He took one step toward her. The security supervisor straightened.
“Where is the envelope?” Malcolm repeated.
Nora looked at Celeste. The bride had gone pale beneath her makeup.
Lucas said, “You need to leave.”
Malcolm’s gaze remained fixed on Nora. “This is my daughter’s suite.”
“It belongs to the hotel.”
“I own forty-one percent of the hotel.”
“And I own forty-nine.”
“Lucas,” Celeste said.
He looked at her.
She stood slowly, holding the vanity for balance. “I need five minutes with my father.”
Malcolm’s shoulders eased, perhaps mistaking the request for an alliance.
Celeste’s next words removed that hope.
“Alone.”
The wedding remained suspended for seventy-three minutes.
During that time, Nora changed into Celeste’s gray dress in the bathroom while Lucas waited outside with the locket. The dress was, as predicted, too long. Nora folded the waist once and tied the sash tightly. She rinsed fountain water from her hair, removed her remaining shoe, and pressed a towel against her face until the pressure stopped her hands from shaking.
Her phone contained forty-one notifications.
Most came from other musicians who had been at the reception. A violist named Keisha had sent six messages, the first asking whether Nora was hurt and the last warning that a guest had posted a video.
Nora opened the link.
The recording began after she entered the fountain. It showed Malcolm pointing, Lucas shielding her, and Celeste standing behind them. The caption read: BRIDE’S NIGHTMARE—MYSTERY WOMAN CRASHES ASHFORD WEDDING.
There was no audio of Malcolm grabbing her. No footage of the moment she fell. The person recording had missed the locket, but commenters had already decided Nora was Lucas’s former lover, secret wife, abandoned employee, or paid protester.
Someone had identified her from the quartet’s program.
Her professional page was filling with insults.
Nora turned off the phone.
For the past eight years, she had built a living from orchestra substitutions, wedding work, private teaching, and the occasional studio session. It was not glamorous, but it was hers. She paid rent on time. She had health insurance through the musicians’ union. She owned a violin that cost more than her car and worried about both with equal intensity.
A single twelve-second video could now make her unemployable to every event planner who wanted elegance without complications.
She sat on the closed toilet lid and stared at the borrowed slippers.
Her mother would have told her to leave.
Ana had avoided confrontation with the discipline of a person who had once survived too much of it. She apologized when strangers bumped into her in grocery stores. She returned food she had not ordered rather than correct the server. When telemarketers called, she listened until they finished.
But six days before Daniel Ashford died, Ana had been gone for almost four years, and Nora had traveled to the hospice because his assistant said he wished to discuss her mother.
Daniel had been smaller than she expected. The broad man from magazine photographs had become a face against a white pillow, his hair thin and his skin almost translucent. A clear tube crossed beneath his nose. He apologized for the smell of the room, though there was no smell beyond antiseptic and peppermint.
“I should have called when she was alive,” he said.
Nora stood beside the window and kept her coat on. “Yes.”
“I did, once.”
“She hung up.”
“She had reason.”
“What reason?”
Daniel watched the trees beyond the glass. “I am trying to decide whether honesty at the end is courage or vanity.”
“You asked me to drive two hours.”
“That sounds like vanity.”
He coughed until a nurse came in. When the nurse left, he gave Nora a small wooden box containing the locket and a sealed envelope with Malcolm Warren’s name written across it.
“Take both to Lucas,” he said.
“Why not mail them?”
“Because Malcolm opens doors that aren’t his.”
Nora studied him. “What is in the envelope?”
“Something I failed to sign when it mattered.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“No.”
“Why should I help you?”
His eyes moved to the violin-shaped charm at her throat, the cheap silver necklace Ana had given her at fourteen. “Because your mother asked me once to tell the truth in a room where it would cost me something. I didn’t. I’m asking you to do what I could not.”
Nora nearly left then.
She stayed because his hand was trembling beneath the blanket. Not from fear, she thought, but from the effort of remaining himself.
“When do I give it to Lucas?”
“Privately, if you can.”
“And if I can’t?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
After a while he said, “If Malcolm makes the same choice twice, do not protect him from witnesses.”
Nora had asked what that meant. Daniel refused to explain.
Before she left, he requested one more thing.
“Play for me.”
“I didn’t bring my violin.”
“Then hum.”
“I don’t hum.”
“Your mother did.”
“Badly.”
He smiled. It was the only time she saw him do it.
She did not hum.
Six days later, he died.
Nora had tried to contact Lucas through Ashford Holdings, but her messages were diverted to communications staff. A certified letter came back unopened. Daniel’s assistant stopped responding. Eventually, through a contracting agency, Nora saw that musicians were being hired for the Ashford-Warren wedding at the Grand.
May you like
She applied without using her connection to Ana.
She told herself it was the only reliable way to enter the hotel. She did not tell herself that some part of her wanted to see the room where her mother’s life had narrowed.
