Chapter 6: The Conversation Margaret Had Rehearsed and the One She Hadn't
She crossed her ankles.
Arranged her handbag on her lap.
Looked at a point somewhere past my left shoulder.
"I want you to know," she began, "that I only ever wanted what was best for Adrian."
"I know you believe that," I said.
"Tell me about the apartment."
Her jaw tightened.
"I don't know what you mean."
"The condominium in River North.
The one transferred to Sienna Blake eight weeks ago from Cain Development.
The one worth one point two million dollars." I watched her face.
"Tell me about that."
The composed expression held for exactly three more seconds.
Then she looked at Walter.
Walter looked back at her with nothing in his face.
No rescue.
No softening.
Just waiting.
Margaret set her handbag beside her chair.
"Adrian told me she needed somewhere stable to live," she said.
"He said it was a business arrangement.
That she was managing some of the smaller development accounts and it was compensation."
"A 1.2 million dollar condominium is not compensation for an administrative assistant," I said.
"He said she had been invaluable."
"Margaret.
When did he tell you this?"
A pause.
"About ten weeks ago."
"And you didn't tell me."
She looked back at the point past my shoulder.
"It wasn't my place."
"He's my husband."
"He's my son."
Walter made a quiet sound.
Not quite a word.
Margaret stopped.
"You knew," I said.
"Ten weeks ago, you knew he had transferred a property to a twenty-two-year-old woman in his office, and you said nothing to me."
"I thought he would end it."
"End what?
You just said it was a business arrangement."
Her chin dropped slightly.
"Margaret.
End what?"
She picked up her handbag.
Set it back down.
"He told me it had been going on for about four months.
He told me it was nothing serious.
A mistake.
He said he was going to fix it."
Four months.
I had been sitting across from clients at research presentations four months ago.
I had driven Laya to school and packed her lunch and arranged her birthday party invitations on the kitchen table.
I had handed Adrian his coffee in the morning and asked about his meetings and listened to him talk about interest rates and development permits and the investor dinner in November where he'd said I'd looked beautiful in my green dress.
Four months.
"He told you it was a mistake," I said.
"Yes."
"And the property transfer?"
"He said that was separate.
That it was business.
I wanted to believe him."
"Did you believe him?"
A long silence.
"No," she said finally.
The word came out very quietly.
"No.
I didn't."
Walter stood up from his chair.
He walked to the vending machine at the end of the corridor and stood in front of it without pressing anything.
His shoulders were very still.
"There's something else," Margaret said.
Her voice had lost its composure entirely now.
It sounded smaller.
Older.
"The signature on the transfer document."
I looked at her.
"Adrian showed it to me.
He asked me to witness it." She paused.
"I told him I wouldn't.
We argued.
I told him if he was going to give that girl a property, he should have the courage to sign his own name." Her hands knotted together in her lap.
"The next time I saw the document was when he showed it to me again and told me it was done."
"But he hadn't signed it himself."
"I didn't know that.
Not until tonight."
"Tonight?"
She looked up at me for the first time since sitting down.
"When Sienna arrived at the hospital.
Before you got here.
She was very calm.
Calmer than I would have expected." Margaret's voice was steady now in a different way — the way people speak when they have decided the truth is less dangerous than the alternative.
"She told me the transfer was complete and recorded and that if anything happened to Adrian, she had documentation to support her claim to the property.
She said she had a lawyer."
"She said that to you?
Tonight?
While he was unconscious in there?"
"Yes."
Walter turned around from the vending machine.
He looked at his wife across the length of the corridor.
"She threatened you," I said.
"She informed me," Margaret said.
"That's what she called it." A pause.
"I think she was telling me not to cause trouble."
I stood up slowly.
The full shape of it was becoming clear now — not just the affair, not just the property, but the forged signature on a legal document, and a twenty-two-year-old woman who had arrived at this hospital composed and prepared, who had called the ambulance, who had spoken carefully, who had known exactly which sentences to use and which to withhold.
This was not a woman caught off guard by a terrible night.
This was a woman who had been ready for it.
"Where did Sienna go when she left?" I asked.
Walter answered.
"She said she was going to get her car from the hospital parking structure."
I checked the time on my phone.
Sienna had been gone for thirty-one minutes.
I looked at Margaret.
"Did she take anything from this corridor before she left?"
Margaret's brow moved.
"She had a bag."
"A large one?"
May you like
"Large enough."
I was already walking toward the registration desk.
