Chapter 6: Three Hundred Witnesses
The ballroom filled quickly after seven.
Politicians arrived with their spouses.
Investors came in groups of three and four, already talking.
Journalists stood near the edges with drinks they barely touched.
Boston society arranged itself by invisible rank, the way it always did, and the room settled into the particular hum of people performing their best versions of themselves.
Ethan stood near the main entrance greeting guests.
He wore a dark dinner jacket and shook every hand and remembered every name, and Naomi watched him from her station and thought that he was very good at this and that it clearly cost him something.
Vanessa moved through the room like the party was a stage she had designed for herself, which it was.
She wore a white gown and diamond earrings and smiled at everyone and touched Ethan's arm at regular intervals, and she was, Naomi had to admit, extraordinarily good at this too.
Carter Sloane stayed near the bar.
He did not approach Vanessa.
Vanessa did not approach him.
They were careful and practiced and if you were not looking for it you would not see it at all.
Naomi was looking for it.
At eight-fifteen, Dorothy Whitmore entered the ballroom on the arm of a younger man Naomi recognized as Dorothy's nephew, a retired judge named Philip.
Dorothy wore dark green and moved slowly but without hesitation, and when she passed Naomi's station she did not look at her directly.
She looked at the room.
But her hand, resting on Philip's arm, opened briefly, palm out, and then closed again.
A signal.
Or something close enough to one.
At eight-forty, Vanessa found a reason to cross the east side of the ballroom.
She stopped at Naomi's station.
She did not look at the guests nearby.
She looked at Naomi.
"You're still on the floor," she said, low and even.
"Yes, Ms.
Sterling."
"I want you to understand something." Vanessa's voice was very controlled.
"After tonight, you are done here.
And if you do anything — anything — to make this evening difficult, I will make sure you cannot find work in this city again.
I have those connections.
Do you understand me?"
"I understand you."
"Good."
"Ms.
Sterling." Naomi kept her voice equally quiet.
"There's a gentleman near the bar who arrived as a Sterling family business associate.
Carter Sloane.
I wasn't aware the Sterling family had business interests in common with Whitmore Development."
Vanessa's expression did not change.
But her right hand, holding her champagne glass, tightened slightly.
"He's an old family friend," she said.
"Of course." Naomi adjusted the position of a glass on the tray.
"I only mention it because Mr.
Ethan was asking me earlier about the guest list.
I wasn't sure if he'd had a chance to meet Mr.
Sloane yet."
It was not true.
Ethan had not asked her anything about the guest list.
But Vanessa did not know that.
Something moved behind Vanessa's eyes.
Fast and cold, like a door being shut.
"Stay away from Ethan tonight," Vanessa said.
"I'm serving the east side of the ballroom.
Mr.
Ethan is currently on the west side." Naomi looked at her calmly.
"I don't expect our paths to cross."
Vanessa turned and walked away.
Thirty seconds later, Naomi watched her cross the room toward Carter Sloane.
It was fast and direct and not the movement of a woman going to greet an old family friend.
It was the movement of a woman who needed to tell someone something immediately.
Carter Sloane listened.
His expression did not change.
But he set his drink down on the bar and did not pick it up again.
At nine o'clock, Ethan's aunt called for the room's attention and began the formal welcome.
Ethan moved to the front.
Vanessa joined him, taking his arm, and the room applauded, and the cameras came out, and Vanessa smiled the smile she had been practicing for this moment for months.
Naomi stood at her station on the east side and watched.
She did not see what Vanessa did next until it had already started.
Vanessa turned from the cameras.
She turned toward the east side of the room.
And she walked, in front of three hundred guests and every camera in the ballroom, directly toward Naomi's station.
Her foot came up.
The room had not gone quiet yet.
Most people were still talking, still holding their glasses, still watching Ethan at the front.
Only a handful of guests near the east side saw it happen.
May you like
But the cameras were still running.
And Naomi had caught her ankle.
