“Julian, we have three hundred guests.”
“You have three hundred witnesses.”
The words reached only those nearest them, but they spread through the room faster than anything spoken loudly.
Leah entered the service corridor, where the gold light ended and the practical fluorescent lights began. Stainless steel carts lined the wall. Crates of empty bottles waited beside a gray door marked STAFF ONLY. The air smelled of coffee, hot linen, and the chemical lemon used on the floors.
She walked quickly until the ballroom doors closed behind her.
Then she stopped.
Her chest hurt. She pressed one hand against the wall and tried to breathe without making noise.
A dishwasher pushed a rack of glasses past the far end of the corridor. Two cooks argued beside an open refrigerator. Somewhere, a timer beeped and continued beeping because nobody claimed it. The ordinary hotel noise went on, indifferent to paternity, accusation, and the collapse of expensive marriages.
Leah opened the satchel.
The locket lay on top.
She had seen the photograph thousands of times. Claire at twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, with her head turned slightly away from the camera. Claire had been beautiful in an unfinished way. Her hair escaped pins. One eyebrow rose higher than the other. The pale-green brooch at her collar was the same one Leah now wore, though years had dulled the enamel around the edges.
Rosa had called it Claire’s good-luck pin.
Never the Halcyon pin. Never a gift from Julian Mercer. Never evidence.
Leah closed the bag so hard the broken strap snapped completely.
The ballroom door opened.
Julian stepped into the corridor alone.
Leah turned before he could speak.
“Don’t follow me.”
He stopped.
For the first time that evening, he appeared his age. The gold ballroom light behind him sharpened the lines around his mouth.
“I knew Claire.”
“That was clear.”
“I loved her.”
Leah tightened her grip on the satchel.
He glanced at the brooch.
“She wore that every day.”
“My mother wore lots of things.”
“It was made for the hotel’s first floral program. My mother designed it. Only twelve existed.”
“So?”
“She gave one to Claire.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
Leah wanted to ask why. She wanted to ask what kind of relationship required a custom brooch and a lie about a dead child. Instead she said, “I have to go.”
“Did Rosa ever mention me?”
“No.”
“Did Claire leave letters?”
“No.”
“Her papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“My mother died when I was four. Rosa died eight months ago. I spent the last year of her life keeping track of pills and insurance calls and whether she’d eaten. I wasn’t cataloging secrets for you.”
Julian absorbed the rebuke without defending himself.
The ballroom door opened again. Eleanor stood inside it, her expression composed enough that only someone close would have noticed the pulse in her throat.
“Julian,” she said, “the police have been called.”
He turned.
“By whom?”
“By the foundation’s security liaison.”
“You mean by you.”
“I mean a valuable bracelet is missing.”
Leah looked from one of them to the other.
“You accused me because you saw the locket.”
Eleanor’s eyes shifted to her.
“I accused you because you were where you should not have been.”
“I was working.”
“There are boundaries in this hotel.”
“Yes,” Leah said. “I noticed.”
Eleanor took the insult without blinking.
Julian stepped between them, not dramatically, but enough to interrupt their sight line.
“Go back to the ballroom,” he told his wife.
“Do not speak to me as though I’m an employee.”
Chap 3
“I would never speak to an employee the way you spoke to her.”
Eleanor’s face changed. Fear had appeared when she saw the photograph, but anger gave her something firmer to stand on.
“You don’t know who she is.”
“Neither do you, apparently.”
“I know exactly what this looks like.”
“What does it look like?”
“A young woman arrives at our hotel wearing an old family object, carrying a photograph she knows will affect you, and somehow manages to open it in the center of a room full of influential people.”
Leah stared at her.
“You emptied my bag.”
Eleanor ignored her. “You are being manipulated.”
Julian’s mouth tightened. “The only person I have caught manipulating me tonight is you.”
The door opened a third time. A woman in a navy suit entered with two security officers behind her. Leah recognized her as the hotel’s general manager, Diana Cho. She had approved the floral installation that morning and had complimented Leah’s work without pretending to know anything about flowers.