Chapter 5: The Message
Marcus was moving before he finished reading it.
Helen met him at the door of the family lounge.
Her face was wrong — not panicked, but tight in a way that made his stomach drop.
"She's fine," Helen said immediately.
"She's right inside.
But someone came to the door about ten minutes ago.
A man.
He said he was your driver and that you'd sent him to take Lily to the car."
Marcus pushed the door open.
Lily was on a small sofa, juice box in hand, watching him with wide eyes.
"Daddy?"
He crossed the room and crouched in front of her.
"Did anyone talk to you, sweetheart?
Anyone come in here?"
"The lady didn't let him in," Lily said.
She pointed at Helen.
"She told him to wait and then she locked the door."
Marcus stood.
"What did he look like?"
"Tall," Helen said.
"Dark coat.
He didn't give a name.
When I said I needed to verify with you directly, he left." She paused.
"I should have called you immediately.
I'm sorry."
"You did the right thing." Marcus looked at his daughter.
"Come here, bug."
Lily climbed off the sofa and took his hand.
He didn't let go of it.
Back in the ballroom, Claire was still with Gerald and two other board members.
Richard and Diane were standing apart from them now — together but not speaking, the way people stand when they've run out of moves and are waiting to see what the other person does.
Marcus walked directly to Claire.
"Someone just tried to get to Lily."
Claire's expression didn't change, but her hand moved to her phone.
"Describe him."
Marcus relayed what Helen had said.
Claire typed without looking up.
"I'll send it to my contact at the precinct," she said.
"Do you want to file a report tonight?"
"Yes."
"Marcus." Richard's voice came from across the room.
He had crossed toward them without Marcus noticing.
Diane was still where he'd left her.
"I want you to understand something.
Whatever you think just happened — I had nothing to do with it."
"Someone sent a message to my phone telling me to check on my daughter," Marcus said.
"Someone else showed up at the door of the room she was in.
That happened in the same building, in the same hour, as this conversation."
"That's a coincidence."
"Is it?"
Richard's jaw worked.
"I am not a man who involves children."
"Then who sent the message?"
Silence.
"Richard." Claire's voice was level.
"The number that sent the message to Marcus — we can trace it.
We will trace it.
If it comes back to someone connected to you or your firm, that changes the nature of everything we're discussing tonight from a contract dispute to something considerably more serious." She let that sit for a moment.
"If you know who sent it, now is the time to say so."
Richard looked at his wife.
Diane was staring at the floor.
"Diane," Marcus said.
She looked up.
Her eyes were red at the edges — not from crying.
From something held too tightly for too long.
"I didn't tell anyone to touch that child," she said.
Her voice was different now.
The smoothness was gone.
"I want that understood."
"Then who did?" Marcus asked.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"There's someone else," Claire said quietly.
Not a question.
Lily tugged Marcus's hand.
He looked down.
She was watching Diane with that same dry-eyed stillness from the ballroom — a child reading an adult the way children do when they've learned that adults don't always mean what they say.
"She's scared," Lily said.
The room went very quiet.
"Lily—" Marcus started.
"She is, Daddy.
Look at her eyes."
Marcus looked.
And Lily was right.
Underneath the composure and the calculation and the thin, practiced control — Diane Ashford was frightened.
Not of Marcus.
Not of Claire.
Of something else.
Something that wasn't in this room.
"Who are you afraid of?" Marcus asked.
Diane picked up her clutch from the table.
For a moment Marcus thought she was going to walk out.
Instead she unclipped it, reached inside, and placed a folded piece of paper on the table between them.
"I didn't push your daughter on purpose," she said.
"I was startled.
Someone grabbed my arm from behind.
I stumbled.
I didn't look back because I didn't want anyone to see who had touched me."
Marcus stared at the paper.
He didn't pick it up yet.
"Who grabbed you?" Claire asked.
Diane's gaze moved to the ballroom entrance.
May you like
To the doors Richard had walked through less than an hour ago.
"He wasn't alone when he arrived tonight," she said.
