Part 3
“No,” she said. “I don’t know. But I will stay with it until they seal it, and Detective Torres will write down where it goes.”
Torres nodded. “You can watch me.”
Lila surrendered the locket one finger at a time.
When it rested in the clear evidence pouch, the tiny red light was still glowing.
By midnight, the gala’s winter auction had been canceled, the conservatory had been cleared, and three different videos of Camille’s slap were circulating online.
None showed Lila’s wrist.
One began half a second before Camille’s hand made contact and ended on Odette’s stunned face. Another had been slowed down and set to music before the platform removed it. A third included Camille lifting the locket and speaking, but the person filming had been too far away to capture the words.
The foundation issued a statement expressing concern for everyone involved. It did not mention Lila.
Julian signed the statement.
Camille learned this while sitting in the back of a police car with her daughter asleep against her shoulder.
She had not been handcuffed. Torres had taken a formal statement and told her the district attorney would decide how to proceed on the assault complaint. Odette had declined an ambulance, though she allowed a private physician who attended the gala to examine her cheek.
Lila’s wrist had been photographed beside a measurement scale. A paramedic advised ice and said the skin did not appear seriously damaged. Camille had thanked him because she knew polite words, even when every other word had deserted her.
Her driver, Henry, waited outside the precinct. He had worked for the family since before Lila was born and had never asked Camille a personal question.
That night, as he opened the car door, he said, “Is she all right?”
“She will be.”
Henry looked at the sleeping child.
“That was not what I asked.”
Camille met his eyes. “No.”
He nodded once and drove them home.
Their townhouse stood on a quiet block where winter trees had been wrapped in white lights by residents who employed other people to climb ladders. A cluster of reporters waited at the corner. Henry entered through the service garage.
Inside, the housekeeper had left soup warming on the stove. Camille turned it off without tasting it.
She carried Lila upstairs, though the child had become too heavy for this to feel graceful. Halfway up, Lila woke and said she could walk. Camille continued carrying her anyway.
In the bedroom, the pale blue dress had to be peeled carefully over Lila’s wrist. Camille found a soft cotton nightgown and helped her into it. The red marks remained visible.
“Will Mrs. Vane come here?” Lila asked.
“No.”
“Will she send somebody?”
“No.”
“You said you don’t know things you don’t know.”
Camille sat on the edge of the bed.
“You’re right. I don’t believe she will come here. We have security. Henry is downstairs. The alarm is on.”
Lila pulled the blanket to her chin. “Did Daddy steal money?”
The question had existed in the house for more than a year without ever being asked directly.
Camille looked toward the bookshelf. Marc’s photograph stood between two story collections, his face turned slightly away from the camera because he had been laughing at something outside the frame.
“The foundation said he approved transfers he should not have approved,” she said.
“That means yes?”
“It means his name was on papers.”
“Did you believe them?”
Camille smoothed the blanket, once, then again.
“I did not know what to believe.”
“You told me Daddy was good.”
“He was good to us.”
“That is not the same.”
No, it was not.
Camille had once asked Marc why children seemed to locate every weak place in an adult’s answer. He had said it was because they had not yet learned to pretend the walls were solid.
“I loved your father,” she said. “He made mistakes. I may not know all of them yet.”
Lila turned her face toward the pillow. “Mrs. Vane said you paid because you were ashamed.”
Camille’s chest tightened.
After Marc died, the foundation’s auditors had identified a $640,000 deficit in an education fund bearing the D’Arcy name. Odette had arrived at the townhouse with condolences, documents, and a proposal. If Camille replaced the money privately, the foundation would treat the matter as an accounting irregularity and avoid public accusations against Marc.
Camille had signed the check within forty-eight hours.
She told herself she was protecting scholarship students from a frozen program. She told herself she was protecting Lila. She did not tell herself the ugliest truth: she could not bear the thought of strangers searching Marc’s life and deciding which parts of him deserved to survive.
“Yes,” she said. “I paid money to the foundation.”
“Because Daddy stole it?”
“I paid before I knew exactly what happened.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid.”
Lila looked back at her.
Camille had never admitted fear to her daughter. She saw the child rearrange something internally to make space for it.
“Were you afraid like me?”
“Yes.”
“Did someone grab you?”
“No. They did not have to.”
Lila considered that, then reached for Camille’s hand. Her fingers were cold.
“Can I sleep in your room?”
Camille brought her there.
They lay beneath Marc’s side of the blanket because Lila chose it, though the mattress no longer remembered his weight. For an hour, the child shifted every time headlights moved across the ceiling. Camille listened to her breathing lengthen.
At 2:17 in the morning, Camille’s phone displayed thirty-eight missed calls.
Her attorney had called six times. The foundation’s board secretary had called twice. Three friends had sent messages saying they loved her without asking what had happened. Seven others asked what had happened without saying they loved her.
A former cabinet secretary wrote, You must get ahead of this.
Camille turned the phone facedown.
In the dark, Lila murmured, “Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t hit anybody else.”
May you like
“I won’t.”
Camille remained awake until dawn, staring at the place where the ceiling met the wall.
