Part 13
Camille lifted the locket just enough for Odette to see its tiny light.
“It recorded everything you said to her.”
Odette’s posture did not change. Her lips parted, then closed. Her eyes moved from the locket to Lila, from Lila to Julian, and finally toward the guests who had begun lowering their glasses.
The fear in Odette’s face lasted less than a second.
Camille saw it anyway.
Julian reached them with his palms open and low, the gesture of a man approaching a frightened animal without wishing to admit which person he considered dangerous.
“Camille,” he said quietly. “We need to step away from the guests.”
“Someone needs to call the police,” Odette said.
Julian’s eyes moved to Lila’s wrist.
“I believe someone already has.”
A man near the foundation banners lowered his phone. He had been speaking into it, his back turned in a failed attempt at discretion. Around him, conversations restarted in fragments.
Camille could hear her own name moving through the room.
She crouched again, bringing herself level with Lila. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Lila shook her head, then seemed uncertain and touched her upper arm.
“Did she hit you?”
“No.” Lila’s voice cracked. “She grabbed me. She said Daddy was a thief.”
Camille felt the room tilt without anything moving.
Odette recovered first. “That is not what I said.”
The red light continued to glow.
Lila stared at it.
“You said he stole from the children,” she whispered. “You said Mommy knew.”
A woman near the flowers gasped and immediately pretended she had coughed. Julian glanced at the dark blue foundation banners hanging between the arched windows. Each carried the silver emblem of the D’Arcy Center for Young Artists, beneath which donors had been photographed all evening.
Odette’s mouth tightened.
“This is grotesque,” she said. “A grieving child has misunderstood an adult conversation.”
“Then the recording will help,” Camille said.
Julian rubbed his thumb along the seam of his tuxedo trousers. “We should preserve it properly. No one should touch the controls.”
Camille looked at him.
It was not his concern for evidence that caught her attention. It was the speed with which he had understood what the locket might contain.
“You know what she heard,” Camille said.
Julian’s expression remained composed, but a pulse moved once near his temple.
“I know there was a disagreement in the east corridor.”
“You were there?”
“I was nearby.”
Odette turned her head. “Julian.”
One word, spoken without volume, returned twenty years of hierarchy to his face.
He looked away.
Two conservatory security officers arrived, followed by a gala committee member whose gold dress had twisted at one shoulder because she had apparently dressed while hurrying. Behind them came a uniformed police officer and a woman in plain clothes who introduced herself as Detective Nia Torres.
Torres took in the marks on Lila’s wrist, Odette’s reddening cheek, the locket in Camille’s hand, and the circle of wealthy witnesses pretending not to stare.
“No one leaves,” she said.
That request did not survive three minutes. A city council member’s aide explained that the council member had another obligation. A television producer claimed a medical emergency. Two donors disappeared through the coatroom and were photographed outside by reporters who had been waiting for the gala’s award announcements.
Torres directed Camille and Lila toward a small trustees’ salon behind the conservatory. Odette insisted on a separate room. Julian was told to remain available.
As Camille led Lila away, a man she had known for eleven years lifted his phone and began recording.
“Put that down,” Camille said.
He did, embarrassed, but not before the light from his screen reflected in Lila’s wet eyes.
The trustees’ salon contained a marble fireplace that had not been used in decades, a row of gilt chairs, and a table with three unopened bottles of mineral water. Lila sat with her knees together and the cracked locket cupped in her lap. Camille knelt before her again, forgetting the cream silk runner beneath her dress.
Torres sat opposite them. Her voice softened without becoming childish.
“Lila, I need to ask you some questions. Your mother can stay right here.”
Lila looked at Camille.
“You are not in trouble,” Camille said.
“Are you?”
Camille’s hand paused over the mark on Lila’s wrist.
“I may be.”
“Because you hit her?”
“Yes.”
Lila absorbed that. “But she hurt me first.”
“That does not make hitting right.”
Across the room, Torres glanced down at her notebook and gave them a few seconds.
Camille had spent years answering board members, ministers, critics, donors, and journalists without once wishing to disappear. Now she wanted the carpet to open beneath her. She had struck an elderly woman in front of two hundred people. Worse, she had done it in front of Lila.
Torres leaned forward. “Tell me why the locket has a red light.”
“It records,” Lila said.
“Did you turn it on?”
A small nod.
“Why?”
“Because Mrs. Vane told Mr. Cross to send everyone away.”
Camille’s fingers tightened around the edge of the chair.
Torres noticed. “Let her finish.”
Lila traced the damaged hinge with one thumb. “Mommy was talking to the lady from the museum. I went to find the bathroom, but the sign had an arrow and then there were two doors. I heard Mr. Cross say Daddy’s name.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Marc never approved the second transfer.’”
Camille stopped breathing for a moment.
Marc had been dead eighteen months.
Torres asked, “What happened then?”
“I went closer.”
“Did they see you?”
“No. Mrs. Vane said Mr. Cross had done what he was told. She said everybody had jobs because she fixed things. Mr. Cross said the date was wrong. Then Mrs. Vane said dead men didn’t argue about dates.”
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The room had become so quiet that Camille could hear the mineral water inside one bottle move when Torres shifted her elbow.
Lila continued in a smaller voice. “I pressed the locket because Daddy said it was for keeping voices.”
