Chapter 6
The dressing suite wasn't meant to hold anyone. It was meant to store coats and touch up lipstick and wait.
I tried the handle again even though I'd already tried it. It didn't move. The lock was a small brass thumb turn on my side that wouldn't catch, which meant it was locked from the hall. I could hear the ballroom through the wall, the low wash of a string quartet and glasses clinking, and then the faint click of heels pacing just outside the door.
My daughter shifted against my hip. Her cardigan had ridden up and her cheek was hot where she'd pressed it into the champagne satin of my dress. I bounced her once, gently, and breathed with her.
"Mama's here," I whispered. "We're okay, baby. Just a minute."
The room was narrow. A vanity ran along one wall with a big mirror ringed in bulbs, most of them warm and buzzing. A rack of spare wraps and a garment bag hung in the corner. A small love seat in cream velvet. And on the vanity, under a stack of folded programs, a beige corded phone I hadn't noticed at first.
I set my daughter down on the love seat and wedged a pillow behind her so she wouldn't slide. She looked up at me with that serious, tired stare toddlers get when they're overstimulated and trying not to cry.
I picked up the receiver. Dial tone came through, clear. Old building, old line that still worked.
My own phone was in my clutch, which was still on the marble floor by the staircase where I'd fallen. The screen had cracked when I went down - I'd seen the spiderweb in the corner before the woman in magenta crouched over me. I had it now, fished from the clutch I'd grabbed on my way to being steered toward this suite. One bar. No missed calls. The battery at fourteen percent.
I didn't call out. I didn't knock loud enough for the ballroom to hear. That was the last thing I wanted with my daughter in my arms and a hundred donors on the other side of that wall. If I made a scene, she'd make it my fault.
I lifted the suite phone and dialed the number I'd saved three weeks earlier after the foundation's donor dinner. He'd handed me his card when he saw me waiting in line with the stroller and said, "If you need anything during the gala, text me. I'll be on the floor."
The card said Michael Reeves, Director. Tuxedo. Short dark hair. The man who'd stepped forward when the heel came down on my foot.
Outside, the blonde woman's shadow paused under the door. I could see the black strap of her heel.
"You can touch up in there, honey," she said through the door, sweet and loud enough for anyone passing to hear. "You looked like you needed a minute with the baby."
I didn't answer her. I kept my voice low and pressed the receiver close.
The line rang twice. Then his voicemail. Of course he wouldn't hear a ring over the quartet.
I hung up the suite phone and switched to my cell. My thumb shook a little as I typed.
It was me who needed to keep it plain. No accusation in a text that could be screenshot and twisted. No long story. Just what was true and what I needed.
I typed: This is the woman in the champagne dress by the staircase. I'm in the dressing suite off the main hall. Door is locked from outside. I have my daughter with me. I need an escort out and I need the gold locket back that was on the floor. Please come yourself, no announcement. - Elena
I stared at it. Added: Toddler with me. Don't want a scene.
I hit send. One bar flickered. The little delivered note appeared under it after a long three seconds and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd held.
In the ballroom, fifty feet away, Michael checked his phone because the vibration was finally loud enough.
He'd been standing between two donors by the silent auction table, nodding while a man in a navy suit talked about the new youth center wing. His hand was around a glass he hadn't drunk from. He glanced down when his pocket buzzed, expecting a catering update. He read the text and his smile went flat.
I imagined him looking up after that. Scanning the floor where I'd been.
The staircase base was empty now except for a waiter clearing a napkin. My beige pumps were gone from the marble. The magenta gown was not at her table either - her clutch sat there, black and untouched, her chair pushed back at an angle.
He noticed both at once. The missing mother and child. The missing antagonist.
He typed back. One line: On my way. Keep door locked. I have locket.
My phone lit up in my hand. I held it so my daughter could see the light and she reached for it, calm for a second.
"Yeah, he's coming," I whispered to her, tucking a curl behind her ear. "We're going to walk out nice and quiet."
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Outside the door, the woman in magenta shifted her weight. The shadow of her black heel moved away and then back, like she was checking the hall to make sure no one was watching the suite door. She thought I was contained. She thought no one knew I was in here.
I sat on the edge of the love seat with my daughter against my chest, my cracked phone face-up on the vanity where the screen would catch the light if it buzzed again, and listened to the steady, polite hum of the gala on the other side of the wall while the man in the tuxedo wove through it toward us with the locket in his pocket.
