Chương 5
“One ugly moment,” he repeated.
“You frightened her by barging into that room. She was embarrassed. You made it worse.”
“Goodbye, Mother.”
“If you hang up, we will both regret what happens next.”
He ended the call.
His hands shook only after the screen went dark.
The family attorney called before he returned upstairs. Lucas let it ring. A second attorney called fifteen minutes later, one Brenda had used during a dispute with a former business partner. Lucas ignored that call too.
Near the elevators, he ran into Marcus.
The security officer had changed out of his dark suit jacket and carried Gwen’s overnight bag.
“I brought some clothing,” Marcus said. “Mrs. Dawson’s phone was not in the bedroom.”
“Did you search?”
“I checked the nightstand and the charging station. I did not search Mrs. Brenda Dawson’s private rooms.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have authority.”
“I’m giving it to you.”
Marcus held Lucas’s gaze. “The household security contract is controlled by Dawson Residential Management. Your mother is the authorized principal.”
Lucas almost laughed.
Even the men he had ordered into the dining room belonged, on paper, to Brenda.
“Did you see what happened before I arrived?”
“No.”
“Did Theo?”
“No.”
“Did any camera capture it?”
“There are hallway cameras. None inside the dining room.”
“Who entered?”
“I can obtain the access log if the system remains available to me.”
“If?”
“Mrs. Dawson’s attorney instructed us not to release household records without written authorization.”
Lucas felt the cafeteria coffee turn sour in his empty stomach.
“When?”
“Twenty-seven minutes ago.”
“She cut off your access?”
“Not yet.”
“Get the logs.”
Marcus did not move.
“Mr. Dawson, I will preserve anything I’m permitted to preserve. But if I violate the contract, the evidence may become less useful, not more.”
Lucas forced himself to breathe slowly.
“Did you remove the guests?”
“Yes.”
“Did they leave together?”
“Four used their own drivers. Mrs. Hart left with Mrs. Wynn. Mrs. Porter remained with your mother and the attorney.”
“Did anyone speak to you?”
“Mrs. Hart asked whether Mrs. Gwen Dawson was conscious. Mrs. Wynn was crying. The others mostly wanted to know whether they were free to leave.”
“And my mother?”
“She instructed staff members not to discuss a private medical incident.”
“Medical.”
“That was the term she used.”
Lucas looked at the bag.
“What did you bring Gwen?”
“Clothes from the guest room closet. Maria selected them before she left.”
“Left for the day?”
Marcus hesitated. “She resigned.”
Lucas stared at him.
“When?”
“About forty minutes after the ambulance departed.”
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
“Do you have her number?”
“I have an emergency contact number in the security file. I cannot release personnel data without authorization.”
“Marcus.”
“I can ask her to contact you.”
It was the first offer anyone had made that day without protecting Brenda.
“Please.”
Marcus handed him the bag.
“Mr. Dawson.”
Lucas waited.
“I have worked in that house for four years. I never saw Mrs. Gwen Dawson behave violently or irrationally.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“No,” Marcus said. “It isn’t.”
Gwen remained in the hospital overnight. The contractions slowed after fluids and rest, then returned after midnight. Every rise on the monitor pulled Lucas awake in the vinyl chair beside her bed.
They spoke only in fragments.
She asked him to turn down the television though it was already muted. He found a brush in her bag and worked carefully through the tangles in her hair. When he reached the tender place near her temple, she took the brush and finished herself.
At two in the morning, he offered to find food.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten.”
Her face changed.
He regretted the sentence as soon as it left him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing every five minutes.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Then don’t say anything.”
He stood near the window while she watched the monitor.
A cleaning cart squeaked along the hall. Someone laughed softly at the nurses’ station. The city beyond the glass was mostly dark, with red aircraft lights blinking on the roofs of distant towers.
“I believed I was different from her,” Lucas said.
Gwen did not answer.
“I thought because I didn’t shout, I wasn’t controlling.”
“You’re not your mother.”
“That sounds like a low standard now.”
She adjusted the blanket over her stomach.
“You came back.”
“For a folder.”
“You still came back.”
The sentence contained gratitude and accusation in equal measure.
Lucas sat.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t?”
Gwen closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“Were those women there when she made you get under the table?”
“Two arrived after.”
“Which two?”
“I’m not doing this now.”
“I need to know.”
“No, the police may need to know. Your lawyer may need to know. The company may need to know. You don’t get to need everything just because you finally saw it.”
Her voice remained soft. That made it harder to defend himself.
He leaned back in the chair.
After a while, Gwen said, “She told them it was a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?”
“A lesson in gratitude.”
“For what?”
“For being allowed into the family.”
Lucas rubbed his thumb over the smooth edge of his watch.
“Did anyone object?”
“Evelyn told her it was going too far.”
“She still stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Did she laugh?”
Gwen looked at the dark television.
“Once.”
The answer seemed to cost her more than if all six women had laughed together.
“Why did you say you wanted to sit there?”
“Because your mother was looking at me.”
“She couldn’t hurt you in front of me.”
“You don’t know what people can do after a room empties.”
“You thought I would leave you with her?”
“I thought you might ask her to explain.”
Lucas looked away.
May you like
It was exactly what he had done with every smaller cruelty.
At dawn, Gwen finally slept. Lucas stepped into the hall and called an attorney he knew outside the family network. Nina Feld had represented a hotel executive in a partnership dispute and had once told Lucas, over a bad lunch, that wealthy families were companies without compliance departments.
