Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Would Not Look Away

The medication took the sharpest edge off Kate's pain, but it did nothing about the silence that followed Damon's last instruction.

Anonymous donor.

Those two words had been spoken with the same composure as the order to find Preston Caldwell before sunrise. Kate sat on the wooden crate while Dr. Reyes inspected her wrist, trying to understand how someone could decide to pay a stranger's hospital debt and make fifteen men afraid with one telephone call.

"This needs imaging," the doctor said. "And an orthopedic team. I'm not going to pretend otherwise because we happen to be in an expensive house."

Damon nodded. "Arrange transport."

"I can take a taxi," Kate offered.

Dr. Reyes gave her a look over the rim of his glasses. "You can't safely fasten a seat belt without help right now."

Kate's cheeks warmed. She was accustomed to finding a way around inconvenience, whether that meant carrying two trays instead of three or sleeping less so she could take an extra shift. She had no experience being told that an injury made her entitled to assistance.

Matteo stepped into the corridor to arrange a vehicle. Walken remained beside the open doorway, facing out. Damon had left the storage-room lock disengaged. Kate noticed that small detail because she had noticed the sound of it turning earlier.

"Will there be police at the hospital?" she asked.

"Not because of the ambulance," Dr. Reyes answered carefully. "But you have injuries consistent with an assault. The staff will ask what happened. They should."

Damon remained quiet.

Kate looked at him. "You told Tomas no police."

"I told him not to call them from my house tonight."

"That's not the same thing."

"No," Damon admitted. "It isn't."

The difference should have comforted her. Instead, it made her wonder how many distinctions existed in Damon's world that ordinary people never had reason to consider.

A second voice came from the corridor.

"Then someone had better tell me why my head of household service has disappeared."

Eleanor Blackwell entered without waiting for an invitation. At eighty-one, she walked with a silver-topped cane and the authority of a woman who had never considered a closed door sufficient reason to change her plans. Her dark evening dress was immaculate. Her expression changed when she saw Kate's uncovered arm.

"Oh, child."

There was no performance in the words.

"Mrs. Blackwell, I'm sorry about the champagne service," Kate said automatically.

Eleanor looked at Damon. "Is that what you've taught the staff to worry about?"

"No," he said.

"Then prove it."

She moved closer to Kate, but stopped when Dr. Reyes indicated that the arm was being stabilized. Eleanor asked whether she was in pain and listened to the answer without interrupting. She did not ask for Preston's name. Whatever Damon had told her in the corridor, she understood that the question was not hers to force.

"The gala will continue without you," Eleanor said. "And if anyone suggests your absence is misconduct, send that person to me."

Kate tried to thank her. The words caught in her throat.

Her phone vibrated again.

Saint Vincent's.

This time, she answered.

"Mom?"

Her mother's voice was thin with fatigue but familiar enough to steady her. She wanted to know whether Kate was eating properly. She wanted to know why Kate had promised to call so late. Kate watched Dr. Reyes wrap a temporary support around her arm and chose words that were honest without placing the whole weight of the evening on a woman already ill.

"I hurt my wrist at work," she said. "I'm getting it checked. I'll call again when I know more."

Her mother asked if she was alone.

Kate glanced toward Eleanor, Dr. Reyes, and the man in the black tuxedo who had ordered the whole house to search for names.

"No," she said. "I'm not alone."

After the call, Eleanor quietly arranged to have Kate's regular wages continue while she recovered. Kate started to protest. Eleanor lifted her cane a fraction.

"I am eighty-one years old, Miss Bennett. You can spend your strength recovering or arguing with me. I recommend the former."

For the first time since the library, Kate almost smiled.

The doctor finished securing her arm. He explained that the bruises should be photographed with her consent before treatment changed their appearance. Kate hesitated. She had wanted to hide every mark under her sleeve. Now someone was asking her to preserve them.

"Do it," she said at last.

Dr. Reyes used a clinical camera and recorded the time. He noted the finger-shaped marks separately from the injury to her wrist. Damon stayed far enough away not to see the photographs unless she chose to show him.

Matteo returned. A vehicle was waiting to take her to the emergency department at Saint Vincent's, where Dr. Reyes had arranged for an orthopedic assessment. Kate's mother was in another wing of the same hospital. Even through the medication, the thought of being so close to her made Kate's chest ache.

Damon's phone lit up. He read the message without changing expression.

"The wire?" Eleanor asked.

"Confirmed by the hospital's billing office."

Kate stared at him. "Already?"

"The overdue balance has been covered," Damon said. "There will be a separate arrangement for the next year. You can verify it yourself."

"Why?"

He considered the question. "Because you shouldn't have to choose between treatment for your mother and treatment for yourself."

Kate had been afraid he would ask her for something in return. The absence of a demand frightened her in a different way. In her experience, gifts from powerful people seldom arrived without a price attached.

"It doesn't buy my silence," she said.

"I know."

From the corridor came the muted voices of men receiving instructions. Matteo checked his phone and looked at Damon.

"The camera team found Preston leaving the west side of the library," he said. "They're compiling the rest. His father is still downstairs."

"And the guest list?"

"Fifteen names we're following. Not all of them were in the library. Some saw things. Some looked away."

Kate felt the blood drain from her face. Fifteen. More than she had guessed from the voices beyond the door.

"I don't want people punished for standing near him," she said.

Damon met her gaze. "Then we find out what each person actually did."

He sounded certain. Kate wanted to believe him.

When Matteo helped her toward the corridor, the estate was still filled with music. The quartet had moved to something lighter. Downstairs, guests would be raising glasses, unaware that a young woman with a broken arm was leaving through a service entrance.

At the threshold, Kate turned back.

"Mr. Blackwell?"

"Damon," he corrected gently.

"What happens to Preston?"

A pause passed between them.

"That depends," Damon said, "on what the truth gives us."

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

Kate went to the hospital with a splinted arm and a question she could not put aside. Before dawn, she would learn that fifteen men connected to the Blackwell gala could no longer be reached by their families, assistants, or employers.

She would also learn that their disappearance did not mean the same thing for every one of them.