Chapter 2 - A Wedding With No Vows
Nathan's words carried far enough that the first two rows of guests heard them. Within seconds the room had the peculiar hush Claire remembered from school assemblies when a child was about to be accused of something in front of everyone.
“You told me it was an empty commercial annex,” Nathan said to Vanessa.
“It will be,” she answered.
“That's not what you said.”
Claire stopped him before the argument swallowed the room. “There are six people who've just been locked in a service corridor. Let them get air. Please move the guests away from that door.”
The banquet captain directed people toward the lobby. Someone switched off the music. Nell sat with a glass of water, her apron in her lap, while Ivy gave a statement to the arriving officers. The officer asked Claire to describe the chair, the door, and Grant's actions separately. She did. She did not embellish what Nathan had done or minimize it because he had defended her.
Grant said Claire had attacked him first. Nathan described the punch and offered the name of a guest who had filmed it. The officer told them both that the footage and witness accounts would be reviewed. Grant left with his own attorney's number already on his phone.
A woman in pale pink approached Claire before the officer finished. She was one of the guests who had laughed when the chair was pulled away. She held her phone uncertainly.
“I filmed the beginning,” she said. “Not because I knew what would happen. I thought Vanessa was doing a bit.”
Claire wanted to ask how a grown woman falling onto tile could look like entertainment. Instead she said, “Please give it to the officer. The full recording, not a clip of me on the floor.”
The woman agreed. Her expression was ashamed, but Claire didn't comfort her. If the recording showed what happened, it could speak more plainly than another argument.
Vanessa was still wearing her veil when Nathan asked for a private room. Claire watched them disappear into the little office beside the coat check. She had repaired that office's doorframe after a moving crew cracked it. A wedding, a family disaster, and a building in need of maintenance: Hollis Hall remained itself.
Diane followed Claire into the empty ballroom. “You knew how to make her angry.”
“I told her Nell was knocking.”
“You came when I asked you not to.”
“Dad left me a seat at every family table.”
Diane looked at the chair lying sideways beside the dance floor. “Your father isn't here.”
It was the cruelest thing she could have said, and she knew it. Claire had spent his last six months driving him to dialysis appointments, then rushing to the hall to supervise events. Vanessa had visited with flowers and gone home before the laundry came out of the dryer. Their mother remembered the flowers better than the laundry.
Claire stood. “I came because Ivy called me. She said Vanessa put a lock on the staff door. I thought she was mistaken.”
“I didn't know about the lock.”
“Do you know about Maple Court?”
Diane's silence was an answer, though not a complete one.
Claire took the sale summary out again. “These leases are active. Mrs. Alvarez in unit six uses a walker. Malik Harper in thirteen is on a fixed income. You cannot describe their homes as empty.”
“I know who lives there,” Diane said sharply. “I send birthday cards.”
“Then why is your name on the sales committee?”
Her mother looked away. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“Monday is tomorrow.”
Diane finally sat down beside the toppled chair. She looked smaller without the surrounding crowd. “We owe more than you think.”
Claire had known about the mortgage. She had proposed a revised schedule for weddings and community rentals before Vanessa fired her. “How much more?”
Diane put a hand over her mouth, then dropped it. “I don't know. I signed things. Vanessa said she had it handled.”
In the coat-check office Nathan and Vanessa emerged without rings. Vanessa's engagement ring was still on her finger; Nathan had removed his. He told the remaining guests that the reception was over and apologized to the staff for the way they had been treated. He did not announce the end of the engagement over a microphone. Claire respected that small refusal to turn a private decision into entertainment.
Vanessa caught Claire near the kitchen. “You have what you wanted.”
“I wanted Nell to get out.”
“You wanted him to choose you.”
Claire was too tired to laugh. “I don't want your fiancé, Vanessa. I wanted my job back so the people in this building could get paid.”
“You should've thought about that before you stole from us.”
“Show me the withdrawal.”
Vanessa's gaze flickered. “Talk to the bank.”
“I will.”
After midnight Claire took Nell and Ivy to a diner that served breakfast all night. Nell pushed a paper bag across the table. Inside were three uncashable paychecks and a yellow kitchen notebook recording every shift the staff had worked.
“They're telling us we missed payroll because you stole the reserve,” Nell said. “I never believed that.”
Claire swallowed. “Why not?”
“Because when your daddy died, you paid for the staff meal out of your own pocket. You didn't tell anybody.”
Claire hadn't known someone noticed.
Ivy had noticed something else. She showed Claire the office printer log. Someone had printed the false vacancy statement using the account assigned to Diane. The print time was six minutes before Vanessa pulled Claire's chair.
“Your mom was already sitting at the table then,” Ivy said.
Claire looked at the timestamp. “Who had her password?”
“Vanessa. Grant. Whoever uses the desk in that office.”
Claire had been fired for money she hadn't taken. Now a document was being issued in her mother's name while her mother sat in plain sight.
May you like
Her phone vibrated. A text from an unfamiliar number showed a photograph of the kitchen staff locked behind the corridor door, taken from inside the room.
Under it: THIS ISN'T THE FIRST DOOR THEY'VE LOCKED.
