Chapter 20: The First Line

Six hundred people sat under the chandeliers of the Hollister Grand ballroom, and every one of them had come to watch someone fall.

I sat at table one in a black dress that was finally mine.

Ronan was on my left with his chair pulled in close.

On my right sat Maureen, in a borrowed blue dress, released from county on Monday morning with her hands folded in her lap.

She hadn't touched her water.

"Is she going to see me?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Will she look?"

"I don't know," I said, and took her hand.

On the stage, the string quartet finished.

Gordon walked to the lectern in a white tie, with a smile fixed on his face, and the room settled.

"Forty years ago," he said, "my father opened a single hotel on a hill."

He gave the speech he gave every year, about family and loyalty and legacy.

He mentioned Adele's absence as a bad cold.

Twice he glanced at our table, and both times he smiled.

"And now," he said, "my daughter would like to say a few words."

Camille walked out from the wings in a white dress, with four sheets of paper in her hand.

She was very pale.

She did not look at the tables, and she did not look at her father.

He stood a step behind her, one hand resting lightly on her back.

She set the pages on the lectern and smoothed them.

"Good evening," she said.

Her voice was small, and the microphone made it larger.

"This has been a hard few weeks for our family."

Maureen's hand tightened on mine.

"A young woman came into our home," Camille read. "She was lost and confused. Some people around her took advantage of that."

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