Chương 6 - The Keys To Our Closet
The band had started playing again downstairs but nobody was dancing. I could hear it through the double doors to the bridal suite, a low jazz standard trying to cover the fact that half the foundation's board was standing in the hallway staring at us.
Elise hadn't taken her coat off. She stood by the vanity with her arms crossed over the bump, and when I said it she flinched like I'd raised a hand.
"I need the keys to the apartment," I said. My voice sounded flat even to me. "The closet keys. Both of them."
She didn't answer right away. Her eyes went to Jenna, then to Kyra on the little sofa by the window, then back to me.
"Why?" she said. "Adam, you're not actually doing this. You're going to leave your own engagement party to go hunt for a throw pillow because an eight-year-old is mad she didn't get to make a speech?"
Jenna didn't say anything. She had Kyra's hand in both of hers and Kyra was still in that burgundy velvet dress, her feet not quite touching the floor.
I held my hand out. "Elise. The keys. If it's just a pillow on the sofa like you said, then there's nothing to hide."
She laughed once, sharp. "I already put it back. I told you. When I realized how stupid this looked I put it back on the couch this afternoon before we left. It's on the sofa. You're going to drive downtown in your tuxedo to look at a sofa."
That hesitation before she moved was what I would remember later. That second and a half where she looked at the clutch on the vanity and didn't pick it up. Then she snapped it open and dug through lipstick and mints and pulled out the brass ring with the two silver keys and the little gray fob for the building.
"You want to humiliate me, go ahead," she said, and dropped them into my palm instead of handing them over. They were warm. "But I'm not sneaking out the back like I did something wrong."
I closed my fist around them and slipped them into the inside pocket of my tuxedo, the one over my heart, next to the pocket square. I could feel the weight of them against my ribs.
"You're not sneaking anywhere," I said. "You're staying here."
Her head tilted. "Excuse me?"
Jenna finally spoke. "We need a plan that doesn't scare Kyra."
The event coordinator, Marisol, had been hovering by the door since Elise had pulled us in here. She stepped forward now because she understood what I was about to ask before I asked it.
"Ms. Vance can stay in the suite with Kyra and me," Marisol said carefully. "We have the catering staff and security on this floor. No one comes up without my clearance. It's quiet here."
Elise stared at me. "You want me to sit here with your ex-wife's kid while you and your ex-wife go to our apartment?"
"I want Kyra supervised by an adult who isn't you or me alone right now," I said. I tried to keep it level. "That's not a punishment. That's me making sure nobody can say anything happened to that pillow whether it's there or not. Jenna comes with me because it's her phone with the video and because I don't want to go through our closet alone and get accused of moving something."
Kyra had been so still I almost forgot she could speak. She tugged on Jenna's sleeve.
"Mom, can you bring the blue one? That's the one," she whispered. Not to me, to Jenna. "It has the tassels."
Elise's mouth tightened. "See? She's rehearsed the details."
Jenna squeezed Kyra's shoulder but didn't argue. She looked at me. "We drive, we look, we video it, we come back. No one touches anything else."
I nodded. "We don't argue on the way."
Marisol already had her radio out. "I'll have the kitchen send up some ginger ale and keep this hall clear. Mr. Keller, your car is still at the front?"
"Valet has it," I said.
Elise sat down hard on the vanity stool, one hand still on her stomach out of habit. She wasn't crying anymore. She looked tired and angry.
"So I just sit here?" she said.
"You sit here with Kyra and Marisol," I said. "We are fifteen minutes each way. We call you before we open anything. The whole thing stays private."
She didn't give permission so much as she stopped fighting. She waved a hand at us, eyes on the chandeliers' reflection in the mirror.
"Go. Go prove I'm a liar."
Jenna stood and helped Kyra slide off the sofa. Kyra came to me for a second and I knelt so we were eye level. Her dress was wrinkled now.
"We're going to check, okay? You did good telling us," I said quietly.
She nodded. "It's in the top closet. Behind my winter coats that don't fit anymore."
I stood. The keys pressed against my chest when I breathed.
May you like
Jenna opened the suite door. The hallway was empty now except for two foundation staff pretending to look at their phones. Downstairs, someone laughed too loud at a table.
I didn't look back at Elise. I just followed Jenna toward the elevator, my hand in my pocket around the keys, leaving Kyra on the sofa with Marisol between her and Elise, the ballroom still glowing below us and the apartment downtown still untouched.
