Chương 4
A knock sounded on the bathroom door.
“Nora?” Lucas said.
She stood and opened it.
He had found another tuxedo jacket. It did not fit him as well as the first. His hair, perfectly arranged in the wedding photographs circulating online, had fallen slightly over his forehead.
“Celeste is speaking with her father,” he said. “The hotel located the footage from the fountain.”
“Did he push me?”
“The angle isn’t clear.”
Nora gave him a tired look.
“He took your arm,” Lucas said. “You pulled away. A server stepped behind you. You collided with the tray and fell backward.”
“So he didn’t push me.”
“He caused it.”
“There’s a difference.”
“Not enough of one.”
“It may be enough legally.”
His face tightened. “Are you planning to sue?”
“I’m planning to go home.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No. It’s what I answered.”
He glanced at the damp gown hanging from a brass hook. Water had collected beneath it on the tile.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For the dress?”
“For tonight.”
“You don’t know what tonight is yet.”
“No. But I know you were injured at my wedding while trying to deliver something my father gave you.”
“Your almost wedding.”
His gaze moved to the closed suite door.
Nora regretted that too.
She had always been worst when frightened—too sharp, too exact, searching for the sentence that could cut a clean boundary around her. Her mother used to call it building a fence from broken glass.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Lucas shook his head. “You’re not wrong.”
He gave the locket back to her.
Nora did not take it. “It belongs to you.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Your father said to bring it back.”
“To me?”
“He said Lucas.”
“That could mean my family.”
“He said your family had already had it long enough.”
Lucas examined the locket again. On the back, beneath the engraved vines, were three faint initials: A.B., D.A., M.W.
He ran his thumb across them.
“I never saw these,” Nora said.
“The engraving is worn.”
“What do they mean?”
“I don’t know.”
The door opened.
Celeste entered without her bouquet. Her father was not with her.
She had removed her jeweled headpiece, leaving small flattened places in her hair. Without it, she looked younger and far more tired.
“The guests are being sent home,” she said.
Lucas took one step toward her. “Celeste—”
“Not yet.”
He stopped.
She looked at Nora’s borrowed dress, then at the wet gown. “Does it fit?”
“Mostly.”
“Keep it tonight.”
“I can have it cleaned.”
“I don’t care about the dress.”
Her voice sharpened unexpectedly, and Nora watched her breathe through the embarrassment that followed.
“My father says he knew your mother,” Celeste said. “He says she was employed here before the renovation and became obsessed with Daniel.”
Nora almost laughed. “My mother avoided asking neighbors to turn down their television.”
“He says she accused him and Daniel of causing a fire.”
The room seemed to contract.
Lucas looked at Nora. “What fire?”
Nora had expected the question eventually. She had not expected it so soon or with so little preparation.
“The Palm Room fire,” she said.
Lucas’s face went blank.
Celeste looked between them. “You know about it?”
“Everyone in my family knows about it,” Nora said. “My mother was blamed.”
The official fire occurred on February 12, 1998, while the hotel was closed for renovation. According to newspaper archives, an electrical fault near the Palm Room stage ignited decorative fabric stored in a service corridor. Two kitchen workers died from smoke inhalation. Six people were injured, including six-year-old Lucas Ashford, who had been visiting his father at the construction site.
Ana Bell, then twenty-seven and employed to perform for investors touring the renovation, was accused of plugging an amplifier into an unsafe outlet despite warnings from contractors. No criminal charges were filed, but statements attributed to Malcolm and Daniel described her as careless. Her union membership was suspended during the investigation. Venues stopped hiring her. Within a year she had left New York.
Nora had been a toddler.
Her mother spoke of the fire only twice.
The first time, when Nora was eleven, Ana explained why she became anxious around smoke alarms.
The second time, when she was dying, she said, “I did not start it.”
Nora had told her she knew.
Ana had turned her face toward the hospital window. “Knowing is not the same as being able to prove it.”
Lucas sat down on the vanity bench.
“I was there,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I remember smoke.”
Neither woman answered.
He pressed his fingers against his mouth. “I remember someone carrying me.”
“My mother.”
“No.” His answer came too quickly. “A firefighter.”
Nora opened the locket and placed it in his hand.
In the photograph, a white bandage wrapped Lucas’s left forearm. Ana’s blouse was scorched near the collar. The image had been taken after the fire, not before.
Lucas stared at it.
“My father told me a firefighter found me in the west stairwell.”
“Your father lied.”
Celeste sat beside him, leaving a narrow distance between their bodies. “Why would he?”
Nora looked toward the wet gown.
“Because my mother did more than carry him out.”
Ana had found Lucas unconscious near a locked service door. The alarm system had not activated properly, and the corridor’s fire doors had been chained open to allow construction crews to move equipment. She wrapped him in a curtain and crawled through smoke to the Palm Room balcony, where Daniel pulled them through a window.
Ana later told investigators the alarm had been disconnected during unauthorized overnight work ordered by Malcolm. She claimed contractors had warned him that temporary wiring near the stage was overloaded. Malcolm denied it. Daniel first supported Ana privately, then signed a statement agreeing that her amplifier was the probable source.
The hotel’s insurance company accepted the conclusion.
May you like
Ana received no settlement. The families of the dead workers received modest payments tied to confidentiality agreements.
“How do you know all this?” Lucas asked.
