Chương 4
“Because then you would’ve believed me too fast.”
Mara left with Sofia walking six feet behind her.
Daniel remained by the table.
Victoria picked up the china cup Mara had used. The tea had gone dark and cold.
“I need the original staff plans for 1992,” she said. “Employment records for Otis Lane. Any correspondence received by Grant’s office from Mara Ellis. Quietly.”
Daniel nodded.
“And the locket?”
“She kept it.”
“I am aware she kept it.”
“You let her.”
Victoria placed the cup in its saucer. “Did you expect me to wrestle her for it in front of the orchids?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I expected you to have Sofia do it.”
She looked at him.
Daniel’s expression did not change, but he had never needed much expression to wound her.
“You think I’m that person?”
“I think you were frightened.”
The luncheon applause came again. Victoria stared at the closed door.
“So was she,” Daniel said.
By noon the video had been viewed more than six hundred thousand times.
The clip lasted eleven seconds. It began with Mara’s hand holding the locket and ended after Victoria said, Then you’ve been searching for me all these years. The lighting was flattering to no one except the hotel. Victoria’s face appeared pale and severe. Mara looked fragile enough to become whatever the viewer needed her to be: victim, scammer, prophet, addict, actress.
Comments divided almost immediately.
Some accused the Hale family of hiding a murder. Others identified Mara from an old shoplifting arrest in Indiana. A man claiming to have attended high school with her said she had always lied. He had attended a different school. That did not prevent three websites from quoting him.
The hotel’s luncheon guests left through the side entrance to avoid reporters. Two donors postponed pledges. The foundation’s communications director cried in a supply closet, then apologized for crying as though Victoria had caught her stealing.
Grant called at twelve seventeen.
Victoria answered from her office on the seventeenth floor. Daniel sat across from her with a laptop open. Sofia stood near the window reading messages from the hotel’s legal team.
Grant did not greet her.
“Is the frame cracked near the left hinge?”
Victoria’s grip tightened around the phone.
She put the call on speaker.
Daniel’s gaze lifted.
“How would you know?” Victoria asked.
A pause.
“I saw the video.”
“The crack is not visible.”
“Everything is visible now. That is the problem.”
“Did you receive a letter from Mara Ellis in 1998?”
Grant exhaled as if she had asked whether he remembered a lunch reservation. “I received thousands of letters on behalf of your father.”
“This one concerned my mother.”
“Most letters concerning Eleanor came from disturbed people. Psychics. Former employees. Men who said they had married her in Arizona.”
“Did Mara’s letter mention the locket?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remembered the crack.”
“I remember the object. Your mother wore it constantly.”
“She stopped wearing it after I broke it.”
Another pause, shorter this time.
Grant said, “Do not bring that woman back into the hotel.”
“She is not in the hotel.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because she has a criminal record and a story timed perfectly to coincide with the most important refinancing in the company’s history.”
“Mara does not know about the refinancing.”
“Someone does.”
“You think she was sent?”
“I think every public figure eventually meets a stranger holding an object and a tragedy.”
Sofia looked toward the floor.
Victoria said, “She knew about Mother’s scar.”
“Half the family knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were a child.”
“I was fourteen.”
“Still a child.”
“Where was my mother after she left this hotel?”
Grant’s voice softened. It had comforted her through her father’s funeral, a miscarriage, three hostile board meetings, and the morning a kitchen fire killed a banquet cook in St. Louis.
“Victoria, do not let a damaged woman rebuild your childhood for you.”
“She may have witnessed what happened.”
“She may have read old articles and purchased a piece of jewelry.”
“The locket is real.”
“You cannot know that from eleven seconds of video.”
“I held it.”
Grant said nothing.
Victoria walked to the window. Far below, reporters gathered outside the cream stone entrance. One stood almost exactly where Mara had held up the locket.
“You knew she had it,” Victoria said.
“I knew there were rumors.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer I’m giving while company counsel is listening.”
“Our counsel is not on the call.”
“Then your judgment is worse than I feared.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, the office was silent except for the muted traffic below.
Sofia spoke first. “He knew where the crack was.”
“Yes.”
“He could have seen it years ago,” Daniel said.
Victoria turned. “You are defending him?”
“I am preventing one suspicious sentence from becoming a conviction.”
“He signed for the letter.”
“We have a receipt bearing his initials. We have not verified who wrote them.”
“I know his handwriting.”
“So do I.”
Sofia’s phone buzzed. “There is another video.”
This one showed Mara leaving the hotel with cash in her hand.
The caption read: HOTEL HEIRESS PAYS OFF HOMELESS ACCUSER.
Victoria watched herself appear briefly in the doorway behind Mara. She looked composed. Almost bored.
“I should issue a statement,” she said.
Daniel closed his laptop. “Saying what?”
“That Mara approached me with an item believed to have belonged to my mother and that the matter is being reviewed.”
“By whom?”
“We will hire someone.”
“Then hire someone before announcing the review.”
Sofia said, “We also need to think about Ms. Ellis. Reporters will find the residential hotel.”
Victoria called the manager herself. Mara had checked in under her own name, accepted the key, and left without entering the room.
“She thought we were watching her,” Daniel said.
“We were protecting her.”
“You had Sofia follow her.”
“For one block.”
May you like
“To someone who sleeps outdoors, that may count as watching.”
Victoria picked up the scrap of paper with Tessa’s number.
