Chapter 2 - “This is terrible.”
“I’ve had worse headlines.”
“I meant for me.”
I looked at her.
“My mother follows three celebrity gossip accounts. By breakfast tomorrow she’ll have chosen curtains for our imaginary nursery.”
I laughed.
It escaped before I could stop it.
Clara’s mouth fell open.
“You think this is funny?”
“A little.”
“My mother is going to call.”
“Mine too.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“My mother already likes you.”
Clara froze.
“You’ve discussed me with your mother?”
I resumed descending.
“Occasionally.”
“Why?”
“She asks about work.”
“You have forty thousand employees.”
“She doesn’t ask about all of them.”
Clara hurried after me.
“Adrian.”
I kept my face forward so she couldn’t see the smile I had no business wearing.
“What?”
“What exactly have you told your mother about me?”
“That you are impossible.”
“That sounds more like you than her.”
“And that you’re the only person in the finance division who tells me when I’m wrong before preparing supporting documentation.”
Clara was quiet.
Then softer: “You told her that?”
“Yes.”
The stairwell suddenly felt too narrow.
Too personal.
We reached the lobby-level service floor without discussing it again.
Samuel waited beside a gray delivery door wearing his dark chauffeur’s coat, reading glasses low on his nose and irritation across his face.
When he saw me, he folded his newspaper.
“You look alive.”
“I generally aim for that.”
His gaze moved to Clara’s bare feet.
Then to the heels in her hand.
Then back to me.
“I’m not asking.”
“That may be a first,” I said.
“I’m preserving my health.”
Clara slipped her shoes back on.
“Where’s the car?”
“Loading entrance.”
Samuel looked at me.
“Mason called twice.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were with me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are now.”
I regarded him.
Samuel shrugged.
“At my age, I prefer lies that become true quickly.”
We stepped outside.
Cold air swept between the buildings, carrying the familiar mixture of rain, exhaust, and late-night Manhattan.
The sedan waited at the curb.
For the first time since Clara had crossed the ballroom, I allowed myself to look upward.
Rows of illuminated windows.
Terraces.
Rooftops.
Too many possibilities.
“Get in,” Clara said.
We did.
Samuel drove before the doors had fully settled.
“Where?” he asked.
“My townhouse.”
“No,” Clara and Samuel said simultaneously.
I looked from one to the other.
Samuel met my eyes through the mirror.
“If your security system reports to Mason, we don’t go home.”
Clara nodded.
“Exactly.”
I leaned back.
“It’s unsettling how quickly the two of you formed an alliance.”
Samuel turned south.
“Some of us appreciate competent people.”
“Where are we going?”
Samuel smiled faintly.
“Your mother’s.”
I sat forward.
“Absolutely not.”
“Then choose somewhere Mason doesn’t know.”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Clara glanced at me.
“Your mother’s place?”
“Brooklyn Heights.”
“Security?”
“Private building. No Vale staff.”
“Perfect.”
“No.”
Samuel continued driving.
“I’m still your employer.”
“I drove you to kindergarten.”
“That doesn’t give you authority over my adult life.”
“It gives me perspective.”
Clara looked out the window, clearly hiding amusement.
“Don’t encourage him.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re smiling.”
“So are you.”
I stopped.
She was right.
That annoyed me.
Twenty-eight minutes later, we stood outside my mother’s brownstone on a quiet street lined with rain-dark trees.
The house had belonged to my grandparents.
My mother had refused every offer to move somewhere larger after my father died.
“This is home,” she always said.
As if square footage had ever decided that.
Samuel stayed with the car while Clara and I climbed the steps.
Before I could knock, the door opened.
My mother stood there wearing a cream cardigan over blue pajamas.
At sixty-eight, Evelyn Vale possessed the extraordinary ability to look both elegant and entirely unimpressed at two in the morning.
Her eyes moved from me to Clara.
Then to our clothes.
Then she folded her arms.
“So.”
“Mother.”
“You got married.”
“No.”
Clara spoke at the same time.
“Not exactly.”
My mother looked between us.
“Those are suspiciously different answers.”
“We need to come inside,” I said.
Her amusement disappeared.
She knew my voice.
Whatever questions she had, she stepped aside.
“Of course.”
The house smelled like Earl Grey tea and the lavender polish my mother used on old wood.
Nothing had changed.
Family photographs lined the hallway.
My sister Elena at sixteen with braces.
Me at twelve pretending not to smile.
My father in shirtsleeves at Coney Island, holding two melting ice creams while my mother laughed beside him.
Clara slowed near that photograph.
I noticed.
I pretended not to.
My mother led us into the kitchen.
“Tea?”
“No.”
“Yes,” Clara said.
My mother smiled at her.
“At least someone has sense.”
Within minutes, a kettle was warming.
Clara sat at the oak table.
I remained standing.
“Adrian,” my mother said.
“What?”
“You’re making the room nervous.”
“Rooms don’t get nervous.”
“This one does.”
I sat.
She poured tea.
There are moments when a person’s entire understanding of power becomes ridiculous.
I had negotiated hostile acquisitions worth billions.
I had made prosecutors hesitate.
I had sat across from men who considered fear a currency.
And my mother could still silence me by placing a mug down slightly harder than usual.
“Tell me,” she said.
I looked at Clara.
She told the story.
Not dramatically.
Just facts.
A moving red light.
Unexplained guard changes.
Financial transfers.
Mason’s possible connection to Patrick Sloan.
My mother listened without interruption.
When Clara finished, silence settled over the kitchen.
Then my mother asked, “Do you believe Mason betrayed Adrian?”
Clara considered carefully.
“I believe Mason knows why someone wanted Adrian exposed at that window.”
That was different.
My mother understood immediately.
“You think he might have been trying to prevent something.”
“Possibly.”
I stared at Clara.
“You didn’t say that.”
“I didn’t have enough information until tonight.”
“What changed?”
“Mason’s messages.”
I frowned.
“What about them?”
She held out her hand.
“Your phone.”
I gave it to her.
She opened the messages.
“Look at the wording.”
Where are you? Security concern. Call immediately.
Then:
Do not use east exit.
Then:
Stay with Whitmore.
My eyes narrowed.
“Why would he tell me to stay with you if he thought you were interfering?”
“Exactly.”
My mother leaned over.
“Perhaps you should call him.”
“No.”
Both women looked at me.
“I need to understand what he did with the money first.”
Clara nodded.
“Then we work.”
My mother blinked.
“At two-thirty in the morning?”
Clara looked almost apologetic.
“I’m an accountant.”
My mother smiled.
“So was my husband.”
The room went still.
I looked at her.
“What?”
She turned away too quickly.
My father had been many things.
Founder.
Investor.
Real-estate developer.
A man capable of turning three neglected apartment buildings into the beginning of an empire.
But accountant?
No.
At least, not that I knew.
My mother busied herself with the teapot.
“Your father studied accounting before he started Vale Properties.”
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She looked at me.
There was something old in her expression.
A hesitation.
My mother was not a hesitant woman.
Clara noticed too.
“What did Adrian’s father have to do with the company’s financial controls?” she asked gently.
My mother sat down.
“More than Adrian knows.”
For the next hour, she told us a story I had never heard.
My father, Thomas Vale, had built his early business with a partner.
Daniel Rusk.
Mason’s father.
May you like
I knew they had known each other.
I had not known they were partners.
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