Chapter 6
Everyone in the ballroom understood the difference between a wife and a first wife. One threatens the present. The other threatens the past, which is harder to bury once it rises.
I crouched in front of Elena again. “What bad room?”
She looked toward the orchestra risers. “Behind the music.”
Vivian took one step forward. “She’s confused.”
Thomas moved before I did, blocking her line to Elena.
I looked at my wife. “You seem very afraid of a child’s confusion.”
She folded her arms, but her fingers were trembling. “Because this is ridiculous.”
No. It wasn’t.
I had spent nearly two years believing Sofia died in a car accident on a wet private road. Tragic. Sudden. Clean in the way family lies prefer to be. Vivian came into foundation work four months later. Tasteful. Useful. Calm around donors, smooth with old capos, deferential with me.
And now my daughter had just placed her in a room with Sofia before Sofia died.
I sent Thomas with two men to search the stage area. They returned in less than four minutes.
“There’s a service corridor behind the orchestra panels,” Thomas said. “It opens into an old rehearsal chamber.”
Vivian closed her eyes.
That was all I needed.
I went in myself.
The room was mostly dust and forgotten gala storage, but one cabinet had been opened recently. Inside were old guest lists, handwritten seating notes, and one silver earring.
I knew it immediately.
Sofia wore the pair the night before she died. Only one had ever been found after the crash. I had held the surviving one in my hand for months like it could still explain something.
I carried the earring back into the ballroom.
No one spoke.
I held it up between two fingers and watched Vivian’s face.
“You told me Sofia died before she ever knew you.”
Vivian said nothing.
Marcus looked at the floor.
I moved my gaze to him. “What happened in that room?”
He didn’t answer.
I took another step. “Did Sofia find your meetings?”
Still silence.
Vivian finally spoke. “She threatened me.”
There it was. Not denial. Reframing.
“How?”
“She said she would expose people. She accused me of circling this family like a vulture.”
Sofia would have said that. I knew her well enough to hear it in her voice.
Marcus lifted his head. “She copied names.”
That turned my attention back to him at once.
“What names?”
“The men attending private meetings without your knowledge.”
My chest went cold. Sofia had found the faction before I knew it existed. She had taken proof. Vivian had tried to recover it.
“So the crash wasn’t random,” I said.
Marcus looked at Vivian.
She looked straight at me and made the ugliest mistake of the night.
“She could have stopped the car.”
Not she died in a crash.
Not I don’t know what you mean.
She could have stopped the car.
May you like
I heard Elena’s breathing hitch behind Thomas.
My wife had just admitted my first wife had been chased.
