Part 6
Mason looked at Mrs. Vann.
“Do not show anyone else that record.”
“Of course.”
“Can you find out if the keycard was used by a specific person?”
“I’m checking.”
Celeste handed the tablet back.
Her hands had gone cold. Mason could see it in the way her fingers rested against the fabric of her skirt.
“Mason,” she said quietly.
He looked at her.
“We need to speak.”
He looked down at Wren.
The girl was watching both of them now.
Celeste saw that too.
“Not alone,” she said. “Not away from her. Just honestly.”
Mason nodded.
They moved to the small sitting area of the suite. Mason sat on the velvet bench with Wren in his lap. Celeste remained standing at first, then lowered herself to the armchair across from them.
The distance between the furniture was barely six feet.
It felt enormous.
“You need to tell me everything you know about Nora,” Celeste said.
“I don’t know much.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Mason looked down at the photograph.
“We dated for almost two years.”
“Were you in love with her?”
He lifted his eyes.
Celeste held his gaze.
“Yes,” he said.
The answer hurt her. He saw it. But she did not look away.
“What happened?”
“We wanted different things.”
“What things?”
Mason gave a short, humorless breath.
“I wanted my life to stay manageable.”
Celeste’s face changed slightly.
“And Nora?”
“She wanted me to show up.”
Wren looked at him.
“Show up where?”
Mason’s throat tightened.
“Where she needed me.”
The girl considered this.
Then, with the unforgiving plainness children possessed, she asked, “Did you not?”
He had no answer that could survive the question.
Celeste looked down at her hands.
Mason heard himself say, “Not enough.”
The words hung in the room.
For years, he had called the end of his relationship with Nora mutual. It was the word he used when friends asked. It was the word he used when he wanted the past to look like a clean decision instead of a failure of courage.
But nothing about it had been mutual in the way he had pretended.
Nora asked him to delay New York for one day.
He left.
Nora stopped calling.
He let the silence become permanent because searching for her would have required him to admit he had caused it.
Celeste’s voice was low.
“Did you ever think she might have been pregnant?”
“No.”
“But did she ever tell you she wasn’t?”
Mason looked at her.
“No.”
Celeste nodded slowly.
Wren reached into her backpack again.
“My mommy said you would ask that,” she said.
Mason’s eyes moved to her.
“What did she mean?”
The child pulled out a folded envelope from beneath the plastic horse.
It was cream-colored, soft at the edges, and sealed with a strip of clear tape that had been opened and pressed shut again.
“Mama said to give this to you,” Wren said. “But the lady took it.”
Mason stared at the envelope.
“How did you get it back?”
“She put it in my shoe.”
“The lady?”
Wren nodded.
“She said I could keep it if I stayed quiet.”
Celeste leaned forward.
“Did she give it back to you after locking you in here?”
Wren shook her head.
“She put it in my shoe before.”
Mason looked at the child’s bare feet.
One shoe had been missing when he found her.
The other had been in her hands.
He remembered the empty floor near the settee.
“Where is your other shoe?” he asked.
Wren pointed behind the bench.
Celeste stood before Mason could move.
“I’ll get it,” she said.
Wren looked at Mason.
He nodded.
Celeste walked carefully around the settee and knelt near the far side. For a moment, her ivory dress pooled against the floor. She reached beneath the furniture and found the small rose-colored shoe.
Inside it was another folded piece of paper.
Celeste stared at it.
Then looked toward Mason.
“What is that?”
Wren whispered, “The lady said not to tell.”
Mason’s body went cold.
Celeste remained kneeling on the floor, holding the shoe in one hand and the paper in the other.
She did not open it.
“Wren,” she said gently, “did the lady tell you what was written there?”
The girl shook her head.
“She said Daddy would be mad.”
Mason took a breath.
“I’m not mad at you.”
The child looked up at him.
“I know,” she said.
The certainty in her voice hurt more than the fear had.
Celeste stood and brought the paper to Mason.
His fingers touched hers when he took it.
For a fraction of a second, neither of them pulled away.
The gesture was so small it would have meant nothing on another day.
May you like
Now it carried everything they were not saying.
Mason unfolded the page.
