Never In Another Life novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Staircase

Nobody spoke to Margo.

That was the worst of it for her, I think.

A silence like that has a weight, and it lay on her shoulders until her arm sagged and the crystal award hit the stage and cracked.

A man stood up at the front table.

He was silver-haired and broad, in a black tie so crisp it looked ironed on him.

"Constance," he said, and his voice carried without a microphone. "Did you know about this video?"

My mother-in-law turned to face him.

She still had her pearls.

She still had her spine straight.

"Sit down."

"Answer me. You've chaired this Foundation for nineteen years. Did you see it?"

"It's a family matter."

"It's a child pushed down a flight of stairs. Did you see it?"

The room waited.

I saw Constance look for an exit and find only faces.

I saw her look at her son, and he looked back, with nothing left in his face to bargain with.

"Yes," she said.

The word cracked through the ballroom like ice.

"I saw it. I have no answer I can say in this room."

"You let a man go to jail," the silver-haired man said.

"I did not put him there."

"No. You just kept the key in your purse."

A murmur rose, and swelled, and became a sound I had never heard from a crowd that rich.

It was disgust.

Chairs scraped.

A woman in a silver gown picked up her wrap and went down the center aisle without looking back.

A couple followed her, and then a table of surgeons, and then six at once.

The doors at the back opened and closed on a steady stream of black coats.

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