Chương 2
“I don’t know.”
Twenty-six minutes later, Anna was sitting in a laundry room on the service level of the Hale Grand Hotel with a white towel around her shoulders and a paramedic asking whether she knew what day it was.
“Friday.”
“Date?”
“October eighteenth.”
“Year?”
Anna stared at him.
The paramedic, a heavyset man named Ruiz, lifted one eyebrow.
“Sorry. People hate that one.”
“Twenty twenty-six.”
“Good.”
“I work in catering. I’m not concussed.”
“You walked into a table hard enough to bruise your hip.”
“I walk into tables when nobody assaults me.”
“Also fair.”
He smiled briefly, then returned to examining the swelling near her neck.
The joke irritated her.
Then, unexpectedly, she almost laughed.
The sound came out wrong and turned into a breath she could not quite finish.
Ruiz stopped touching her.
“You want a minute?”
Anna nodded.
He stepped back.
The laundry room smelled like starch, hot cotton, and something lemony from industrial detergent. A washing machine hummed behind the wall. Through the door came muffled radio traffic from hotel security and the occasional burst of voices from staff trying not to sound as frightened as they were.
Alexander stood near the stainless-steel sink.
He had removed his jacket. His black shirt sleeves were still buttoned at the wrists, as if he had forgotten he possessed hands.
He had not come closer since Anna flinched in the ballroom.
Victoria was upstairs with hotel security and two police officers.
Anna knew because every few minutes someone told Alexander what Victoria was doing, and every time he said the same thing.
“Do not interfere.”
His chief of security had asked whether the family attorney should speak to the officers first.
“No.”
His assistant had asked whether they should close the ballroom.
“No. Let the guests leave normally.”
His public relations director had appeared in the hallway with the particular expression of a person watching six months of strategic planning catch fire.
“Alexander, we need to discuss phones.”
“Not now.”
“People recorded it.”
“I know.”
“Several reporters were in the room.”
“I know.”
“Then you understand—”
“I said not now, Rebecca.”
Rebecca looked at Anna.
Her frustration vanished.
“Right.”
She left.
Anna studied Alexander over the paramedic’s shoulder.
There were people who became more impressive during emergencies. Her mother had been one. Margaret Mercer could manage a burst pipe, a fever, a broken-down car, and a screaming neighbor while buttering toast.
Alexander was different.
He became narrower.
Less human-looking somehow.
As if fear had burned away every unnecessary movement.
Ruiz asked Anna whether she wanted transport to the emergency room.
“No.”
“You should go.”
“I know.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“I can’t afford—”
Alexander spoke from across the room.
“I’ll cover it.”
Anna turned her head too quickly. Pain flared down her shoulder.
“No.”
Ruiz pretended to become fascinated by his medical bag.
Alexander’s jaw shifted.
“You were hurt in my hotel.”
“By your wife.”
“Yes.”
“So she can cover it.”
“She will.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He seemed on the verge of arguing. Then stopped himself.
“Okay.”
Anna hated the relief she felt.
She hated him a little for being able to step into a problem and make money irrelevant by speaking three words.
Her mother had spent the last fourteen months of her life negotiating payment plans with three different medical offices. Anna still had a folder in her apartment marked MARGARET—BILLS with red notices she no longer legally owed but could not make herself throw away.
Ruiz packed gauze into a side pocket.
“You need photographs taken medically, not just on somebody’s phone. You may need wound care. And you’ve got enough swelling around that bruise that I’d rather somebody image your neck.”
Anna closed her eyes.
Hospitals.
Forms.
Questions.
Police.
Her supervisor asking why she had disappeared in the middle of the most important event of the year.
Her mother’s lab letter, now somewhere upstairs in a blue evening bag that belonged to Victoria Hale.
Anna opened her eyes.
“I’ll go.”
Ruiz nodded.
Alexander pushed away from the sink.
“I’ll take you.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I’m not getting in a car with you.”
Something like embarrassment crossed his face.
“All right.”
“You should deal with your wife.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Despite everything, Anna looked at him.
That was almost funny.
He noticed.
For half a second, the corner of his mouth moved.
Then a hotel security officer stepped into the doorway.
“Mr. Hale?”
“What?”
“The police need to speak with you.”
Alexander’s face shut again.
“They can speak to me here.”
“They’re asking you to come upstairs.”
“Why?”
The officer glanced at Anna.
Alexander noticed.
“Say it.”
“Mrs. Hale is telling them Ms. Mercer attacked her first.”
Anna felt cold.
Alexander did not react immediately.
Then he reached for his jacket, remembered it was no longer on him, and looked down at his empty hand.
It was the first clumsy thing Anna had seen him do.
“What does she say happened?”
“She says Ms. Mercer tried to extort her. That when Mrs. Hale refused, Ms. Mercer grabbed her. She says the crop was used in self-defense.”
Ruiz swore softly.
Anna stood.
Pain shot across her back.
“Sit down,” Alexander said.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
He looked at her.
“Right.”
The security officer shifted his weight.
Anna pressed the towel tighter around her shoulders.
“She has the letter.”
Alexander’s eyes sharpened.
“What letter exactly?”
Anna wished she had not spoken.
For four months she had imagined this conversation.
Sometimes Alexander believed her immediately. Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he offered money. Once, on a particularly bad subway ride, she had imagined dumping the entire folder on his desk and saying, Congratulations, your father was worse than you thought.
She had never imagined delivering the news while wearing a torn maid’s uniform with blood drying against her collar.
“My mother died in March.”
Alexander’s expression softened by a degree.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know her.”
“No.”
May you like
Anna almost said, You should have.
Instead she folded the towel over the front of her dress.
