Chapter 7: The Dressing Suite After The Gala Begins
The ballroom foyer was too bright and too cold. White walls like our hallway at home, but scaled up, with chandeliers that threw light straight down onto the marble. I could hear the quartet warming up behind the closed ballroom doors and the clink of caterers setting water glasses. My red dress felt tight around my waist from standing so long in the car.
Richard kept his hand at my elbow. Not squeezing. Just there.
"Let me hold your clutch for the photo line," he said. His voice was even, gala-even. He smiled at a board member passing by.
I handed it over. I didn't have a choice without making a scene. He undid the small gold clasp and looked inside. Lipstick, a pressed powder, a folded check for the auction. And the old iPhone I'd left on top.
He lifted it between two fingers.
"You brought this," he said quietly. Still smiling.
"It's just in case Mara needs me," I said. "For Lily."
"We said no phones at the table. It ruins the photos. Leave it in the suite locker."
The woman at the welcome table was watching us. I felt the teardrop diamond at my throat shift when I breathed. I kept my face calm the way I'd practiced.
"Of course," I said. "You're right."
He closed the clutch and handed it back, keeping the phone. That was what I wanted him to do. My real phone was flat against the inner lining, slipped into the seam I'd opened and resealed that afternoon with a tiny stitch. It pressed against my palm through the satin when I held the clutch. He didn't feel it because he didn't look for it.
He led me away from the foyer, down the short carpeted hall to the private dressing suites. Ours was marked FOUNDATION HOSTS in gold lettering. Mara was inside on the small couch, Lily curled against her side in her light blue outfit, both of them looking at a picture book. Lily's shoes were off, lined up neatly by the door the way I'd told her.
Mara stood when we came in. She was nineteen, my sister's neighbor, careful and quiet.
"Mrs. Ellis," she said.
"Thank you for sitting with her," I said. I knelt just enough to touch Lily's knee. "You okay, sweetheart?"
Lily nodded. She didn't speak in front of him anymore without being asked. That alone made my chest hurt.
Richard set the decoy phone on the vanity and opened the little locker beside the mirror with a key from his pocket. He dropped the phone inside and shut it. Then he looked at Lily, at the book, at the water glasses on the side table.
"She needs quiet," he said. "The hallway traffic will keep her up. We'll lock it while we're in the ballroom. Mara has what she needs."
Mara glanced at me, uncertain. "I have the juice boxes and the crayons," she said softly.
"We'll be right down the hall," I told her. I tried to make it sound normal. "If she needs anything, knock. We'll hear."
Richard was already moving to the door. He didn't wait for me to finish. He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door toward him. I heard the latch catch. Then a second sound, sharper, metallic.
The lock clicked.
My stomach dropped the way it had in our hallway at three that afternoon. Same white walls, same soft lighting, same click that meant a door was now controlled by him.
He slipped the small brass key into his inside jacket pocket and patted it once. The light gray of his suit jacket wasn't the one Daniel wore, but the gesture was the same — hand to chest, claiming what was his.
"For quiet," he repeated, looking at me directly.
I nodded. I didn't reach for the handle to test it. I knew Mara would try it in a minute and find it locked from the outside, and I knew Richard wanted me to know that.
Through the door I could hear Lily turn a page. She didn't know it had locked.
From the ballroom, the event coordinator's voice came over the speaker, muffled. "Guests, please take your seats. Our program will begin in five minutes."
Richard straightened his tie. "Time to be seen," he said. He offered his arm.
May you like
I took it. The satin lining of my clutch brushed against my wrist where my phone was hidden. The key was in his left inner pocket — I'd seen exactly which one. And in the loading dock stairwell two floors down, Daniel was waiting with Lily's bag by the side lot, his phone on silent, watching the door I would need to get back to.
I walked with Richard toward the ballroom doors, leaving the locked suite behind me, listening to that click echo every step.
