Chương 9
“But he called later.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell them?”
“I told Robert.”
“What did Thomas say?”
Evelyn’s face had gone pale beneath her makeup. “He said the necklace was his fault. He said he would explain when he returned.”
“And you let my mother stay accused.”
“The charge was dropped.”
“After he died.”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
Evelyn flinched.
Mara had wanted that. She had wanted the old woman to feel one clean cut of what Sofia had carried.
It did not make her feel better.
Evelyn looked at the copied letters. “He was coming home to tell me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He said he was.”
“He also said a lot of things to my mother.”
Mara slid the sixth letter across the table.
Evelyn read it slowly. When she reached the line about telling his mother, she removed her glasses and folded them.
“He wrote this the day before the necklace was finished,” Mara said.
Evelyn touched the date. “He never told me.”
“He was afraid of you.”
“He was afraid of his father.”
“Both can be true.”
Evelyn did not answer.
Leonard opened another folder. “There is one issue we should discuss. The settlement references a letter delivered by Sofia on June twenty-eighth.”
“The blue envelope,” Mara said.
Evelyn looked at him. “You found it?”
“No. I found a billing entry from Mr. Cress: review correspondence from T.V., delivered by S.O.”
“What happened to it?”
“The estate file does not contain it.”
Mara turned to Evelyn. “Grace has it.”
“You do not know that.”
“She knew the jeweler closed. She knew the nickname Fia before I told anyone. She was in the library when my mother delivered the envelope.”
Evelyn stood so quickly her chair struck the wall.
“Where are you going?” Leonard asked.
“To ask my daughter.”
Mara stood too. “I’m coming.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to disappear into another room and decide what I’m allowed to know.”
Evelyn stared at her.
Mara saw the habit in the woman—the expectation that resistance would end if she held her gaze long enough.
It did not.
“Fine,” Evelyn said.
Grace was at Vale Hospitality’s headquarters in Purchase, preparing for an emergency board meeting. She refused to leave. Mara, Evelyn, Leonard, and Pritchard drove there in two cars.
On the way, Evelyn sat beside Mara in the back seat.
For most of the trip, neither spoke.
At a traffic light, Evelyn opened her purse and removed a packet of tissues. She offered one to Mara.
“I’m not crying.”
“I know. There is peanut butter on your sleeve.”
Mara looked down.
There was.
She took the tissue.
Evelyn faced the window again. “Thomas hated peanut butter.”
“Why?”
“He said it stuck to the roof of his mouth.”
“That’s what it does.”
“He considered it a design flaw.”
Mara almost smiled.
The light changed.
Vale Hospitality occupied four floors of a glass building surrounded by ornamental grass. Employees pretended not to watch as the group crossed the lobby. Mara recognized her own blurred face on a television mounted near reception.
Grace waited in a conference room with two board members, a crisis consultant, and a public relations director whose laptop was covered in color-coded notes.
She dismissed everyone except the family.
Mara remained.
Grace looked at her mother. “This is not the place.”
“It is exactly the place,” Evelyn said. “You have always preferred offices.”
Grace glanced at Leonard. “What has she been told?”
“Everything we found.”
“Which is not everything.”
“Then improve the situation.”
Grace’s gaze moved to Mara. “You brought them to your apartment.”
“Yes.”
“That was reckless.”
“You came.”
“I was referring to documents.”
“Of course.”
Evelyn put both palms on the conference table. “Where is Thomas’s letter?”
Grace’s face became unreadable.
“What letter?”
“The blue envelope.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Grace sat down.
Mara felt something inside her harden.
“You have it,” she said.
Grace looked toward the glass wall. Employees moved through the corridor carrying laptops and coffee. They could see the shapes in the room but not hear the words.
“It wasn’t addressed to Sofia,” Grace said.
“That wasn’t the question,” Evelyn replied.
“It was addressed to you.”
“Where is it?”
“Safe.”
“Which safe?”
“My bank.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Mara had expected triumph when the lie broke. Instead, she felt sick.
“Why?” she asked.
Grace looked at her. “Because my brother was dead. My father was barely functioning. My mother was sedated. Reporters were outside the gate. Sofia arrived with a letter saying Thomas intended to acknowledge a child nobody knew existed.”
“So you hid it.”
“I read it first.”
“That is not better.”
“No. It is what happened.”
Grace took a breath. “Thomas wrote that he had given Sofia a copy of the necklace. He wrote that the child was his. He asked Mother to help them if anything happened to him.”
Evelyn gripped the edge of the table.
“You read that,” she said, “and gave Sofia to your father’s lawyer.”
“I was twenty-eight.”
“So was she,” Mara said.
Grace looked at her sharply.
“My mother was twenty-nine,” Mara continued. “Pregnant. Recently arrested. Her child’s father was dead. You were not the only young person in the room.”
Grace’s composure broke at the edges. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you’ve spent twenty-three years making sure nobody else did.”
“My father said the letter could be fabricated.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“You recognized Thomas’s handwriting.”
“Yes.”
“You recognized the necklace.”
“I had seen sketches.”
Evelyn’s voice dropped. “You told me there was nothing.”
Grace turned toward her. “You could barely stand. You had not slept. Dad said Sofia wanted money. He said Thomas had been unstable, that he made promises to women, that if we accepted her claim we would invite ten more.”
“And you believed him?”
“I needed to.”
May you like
The honesty of it stopped them.
Grace pressed her fingertips against her forehead. “He told me we had to protect you. He said if you learned Thomas had been driving home after a fight with him, you would blame yourself.”
