Chapter 4: The Night Naomi Could Not Forget
The video began on a dozen phones at once.
Glass shattered through the ballroom speakers as a younger Naomi drove a man backward through a doorway.
Arthur looked away from the screen.
“You brought that history beneath my roof.”
“I brought no danger here,” Naomi said.
“My late wife trusted me to protect this family.
What would she say if she saw this?”
Naomi flinched as if the words had crossed the room and struck her.
Her staff keys slipped from her fingers.
Ethan caught her hand.
“Look at me.”
“Let go,” she whispered.
“Your father is right about one thing.
I should never have come.”
“No.
He saw twelve seconds chosen by Vanessa.”
“It was enough.”
The young server stepped in front of Arthur.
“It wasn’t enough, sir.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“Stay out of this.”
The girl removed her serving badge.
Beneath it hung a silver locket with a dent across its center.
“My name is Lucy Mercer,” she said.
“I was ten years old in Philadelphia.”
Naomi stared at the locket.
“Lucy?”
“You pushed me behind a stone counter that night.” Lucy opened it, revealing a photograph of a uniformed man.
“My father was the guard beside you.”
Margaret put an arm around Lucy.
“Daniel Mercer didn’t survive the injuries he received protecting those children.”
Lucy faced the guests.
“The man in Vanessa’s clip had grabbed me.
Naomi pulled him away before he could hurt me.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
“That is a touching story.
It doesn’t change the video.”
“There was another camera,” Lucy replied.
“It showed everything.”
Naomi covered her mouth.
Lucy reached for her, and Naomi’s shoulders finally gave way.
“I thought you blamed me,” Naomi said through her tears.
“For my father?” Lucy held her tightly.
“His last words to me were, ‘Naomi kept you safe.’ I have wanted to thank you for eight years.”
Ethan stood beside them.
“You never told me.”
“You knew me for cups of tea,” Naomi said.
“You didn’t know what came before them.”
“I should have asked.”
“And I should have answered.”
Margaret’s phone vibrated.
She read the message, then looked at Vanessa.
“The complete recording was kept in the Hale Security archive.”
“Then show it,” Vanessa said.
“I can’t.
Someone deleted the file eleven minutes ago.”
Vanessa’s eyebrows lifted.
“How unfortunate.”
Margaret held up the screen.
“The deletion request came from inside Whitmore House.”
Vanessa walked toward the library.
“Perhaps your famous security is not as impressive as you claim.”
Naomi followed and closed the doors behind them.
“You accessed that archive.”
“Prove it.”
“You used me to reach Ethan.”
“I expected him to defend an employee,” Vanessa said.
“I did not expect him to fall in love with one.”
Ethan, standing in the doorway, went still.
Vanessa pulled a folded statement from her bag.
“Sign this, Naomi.
Admit you took the earrings and leave Boston tonight.
The edited video disappears.”
“And Lucy?”
“Her name stays out of the press.”
Naomi tore the statement in half.
“You do not get to threaten her.”
Vanessa’s voice dropped.
“Then tomorrow, every headline will call you dangerous, and Lucy will relive the worst night of her life in public.”
“You’re afraid of the full recording.”
“There is no full recording anymore.”
A soft voice came from behind Ethan.
Lucy raised an old brass key.
May you like
“My father never trusted a single archive.
He kept a copy somewhere no one would think to search.”
