Chapter 14: Room 312

At ten-twenty-eight Tiffany walked down the third-floor corridor of the Atlantic Hotel with her chin up and her hands empty.

Nathaniel and I stood around the corner by the ice machine.

Jo's earbud was in my left ear.

Through it I heard a knock, a door, and Margaret's voice, warm as a cup of tea.

"There she is. Sit, darling. You look exhausted."

"I didn't sleep," Tiffany said.

"Nobody sleeps before a good decision."

I felt Nathaniel go rigid beside me.

I put my hand flat on his sleeve and left it there.

Margaret did what Jo had said she would do, which was talk.

She explained the statement to Tiffany as if to a child, line by line.

She said that Nathaniel would be too ashamed to deny it.

She said the town would remember the child, not the paperwork.

She said, "And Claire will be the other woman who married the baby's father. Girls like that don't stay once they've been made to look foolish."

Beside me, Nathaniel breathed out through his nose.

"Where do I sign?" Tiffany asked.

"Here, and here. My lawyer will witness."

A man's voice said, "Of course," and a pen clicked.

I counted three seconds.

Then I walked down the corridor to room three-twelve and knocked twice.

"Housekeeping," I said.

The door opened on the lawyer.

He took one look at me and then at the man behind me, and his face emptied.

"Mrs. Aldridge," I said, to the woman in the pale gray suit by the window. "Good morning."

Margaret turned.

For one second I saw it, the real face, a flat, unsmiling stare with no pearls on it.

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