Chapter 6: Vanessa at the Door
She was waiting outside my apartment when I got home.
Not in the lobby — outside, on the steps, still in the ivory dress she had worn to the wedding.
Her bouquet was gone.
Her veil was gone.
She was sitting on the top step with her arms wrapped around herself, and when she saw me come around the corner, she stood.
I stopped at the bottom of the steps.
"Nathan," she said.
"Vanessa."
"Will you let me talk to you?
Please.
Just five minutes."
I looked at her for a moment.
Then I walked up the steps and unlocked the door and held it open.
She went in ahead of me.
We stood in the hallway.
I didn't offer her a seat.
"I didn't know," she said.
"About your father.
About who he was.
None of it."
"I believe that part," I said.
"Then you have to believe I wasn't trying to—"
"Vanessa." I kept my voice even.
"When your mother pointed at my father and called him trash, what did you do?"
Her mouth tightened.
"I know.
I know what I did.
I panicked.
I didn't want a scene.
I should have said something and I didn't, and I'm sorry."
"You laughed."
She looked at the floor.
"I know."
"That's not panic.
Panic is freezing.
Panic is looking away." I paused.
"You laughed."
She didn't answer that.
"Three months ago," I said, "you told me your family had a property project.
You suggested my father might want to invest."
Something crossed her face.
Fast, then gone.
"That was just a conversation," she said.
"Was it?"
"Nathan, I was making conversation.
My mother mentioned the project and I passed it along.
That's all it was."
"Did you know about the Harrington deal?"
Her chin came up.
"What?"
"Did your family lose a man named Harrington his entire investment in a development deal four years ago?
Did they structure a bridge loan to guarantee he would default?
Did they use a recorded call to do it in a way they thought would never come back to them?"
The color left her face.
Not gradually — all at once, like a light going out.
"Where did you hear that name?" she said.
"Did you know, Vanessa?"
"Where did you hear that name?"
"Answer me first."
She turned away from me.
She walked two steps toward the window and stopped, her back to me, her hands at her sides.
"I knew something happened with one of my mother's old partners," she said finally.
"I didn't know the details.
I didn't ask."
"You didn't ask," I repeated.
"She told me it was a business dispute.
That he'd made bad decisions and blamed her for them." She turned back around.
"She's my mother, Nathan.
I believed her."
"And when she told you to mention the investment opportunity to me?
Did you believe her then too?"
Her jaw moved.
"She didn't tell me to.
It was a suggestion.
She said your family might have capital to put to work and it could benefit everyone."
"She said your family might have capital." I looked at her.
"She'd already looked into my father before the wedding.
She knew something about his background.
Not everything — but something.
Enough to ask the question."
Vanessa's hands went to her elbows.
She held herself tightly, the way someone holds themselves when they are trying very hard not to show something.
"I can't control what my mother does," she said.
"No," I said.
"But you could have warned me.
And you didn't."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"What are you going to do?" she said.
"I'm going to do what's right," I said.
"Whatever that turns out to be."
She pulled her coat off the hook where she had set it when she came in.
She pulled it on slowly, not looking at me.
"My mother is going to fight this," she said.
"Whatever you're thinking of doing — she will fight it.
She will not go quietly."
"I know," I said.
She walked to the door.
Her hand on the handle, she stopped.
"I did love you," she said.
"In case that matters."
"It matters," I said.
"It's just not enough."
She opened the door and left.
I stood in the hallway until I heard the elevator close.
Then I took out Carol Freyne's card and called her number.
She answered on the second ring.
"I'm ready to make the statement," I said.
A pause on the line.
Then: "Can you come in tomorrow morning?"
"Yes."
"Mr.
Bennett —" She stopped.
"What changed your mind?"
"She told me her mother would fight," I said.
May you like
"She said it like it was a warning.
But it felt like a confirmation."
