Chapter 4: The Agency Call
William held out his hand.
Not to me.
To Victoria.
"Give me the phone."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Victoria."
She looked at his open hand.
Then at the room full of people who were no longer pretending to do anything else.
Her chin lifted exactly one degree — the small, precise movement of someone recalculating.
"Fine." She pulled the clutch open and placed the phone in his palm.
"It's nothing.
It's my assistant."
He looked at the screen.
Three missed calls.
Same number.
No name saved — just eleven digits.
"Your assistant doesn't have a contact name?"
"I have several people who work for me.
I don't save all of them."
He turned the phone toward me.
"Do you recognize this number?"
I looked at it.
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
"That's the agency," I said.
"That's the number for Hartwell Catering."
Nobody moved.
William set the phone down on the nearest table, face-up.
"Call them back," he said to Victoria.
"On speaker."
"I will not be spoken to like—"
"Call them back." His voice had gone very quiet.
That particular kind of quiet that doesn't need volume.
"Or I will."
Victoria's eyes swept the room once.
The calculation behind them was almost visible — how many people, how much damage, how far this had already gone.
She picked up the phone.
Her thumb moved to the screen.
She pressed call.
It rang twice.
"Mrs.
Ashworth." A man's voice, slightly breathless.
"I've been trying to reach you.
There's been a problem with tonight's—"
"You're on speaker," William said.
"This is William Holt.
Who am I speaking with?"
A pause.
"This is — this is Derek Paulson.
I manage operations at Hartwell."
"Mr.
Paulson.
Did someone from this event contact your agency to request a specific server by name?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"Mr.
Holt, I'm not sure I should—"
"Did they or didn't they?"
The sound of papers moving.
A chair.
"Yes.
We received a specific request three days ago.
The name on the request was Eleanor Marsh."
"And who made that request?"
The pause this time was the longest yet.
"The request came from the personal account of a Mrs.
Victoria Ashworth."
The woman in the green dress put her hand over her mouth.
Victoria didn't move.
She was very still in the way that expensive things go still when they are about to break — not outwardly, but at the point where the pressure has been building longest.
"Thank you, Mr.
Paulson," William said, and ended the call.
He set the phone back on the table.
"You knew she existed," he said to Victoria.
"You knew where she was.
And you brought her here tonight."
"I can explain—"
"You brought her here," he said again, "to this room, to this event, in a uniform, pouring wine.
You knew who she was and you put her in front of me like that."
"I needed to know," Victoria said.
Her voice had changed again.
The careful version was gone now too.
What was left underneath was harder and older and not particularly interested in being liked.
"I needed to see if she'd say anything.
If she even knew.
I've been watching for years, William.
Years.
Waiting to see if Diane told her."
"Diane is de@d," I said.
Victoria looked at me.
"I know."
"You knew my mother."
"I knew of her." The distinction was precise and deliberate.
"I knew what she was to William before I was.
I knew she'd had a child.
I didn't know what she'd told that child or what she'd kept.
I needed to find out."
"So you put her in a server's uniform and crushed her necklace," William said.
"I didn't know about the necklace."
"That's the part you're clarifying?"
Her phone buzzed again on the table.
All three of them looked at it.
Different number this time.
May you like
Victoria reached for it.
William got there first.
