The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Brunch

I wore the navy suit.

It was the one I had worn to all nine trials, with the narrow skirt and the jacket cut sharp at the shoulder.

Dolores had kept it in a garment bag in her office closet for five years and had never once mentioned it.

I put it on in the fourth-floor restroom at ten-thirty, and the woman in the mirror stood a little taller than I did.

I put Daphne's heels in a paper shopping bag.

Then I drove to the Lakeshore Club and handed my keys to a valet who did not know I had no money.

The private dining room had a long table by the windows, set for twelve.

The others were already seated, and every one of them stopped talking when I walked in.

Daphne rose from the head of the table in a cream dress and a pair of tan heels I had never seen.

"Ella," she said, with her arms already open. "Oh, sweetheart."

She hugged me.

She smelled like the perfume I had given her for her birthday.

I let her.

I waited a beat and stepped back.

"We're all here for you," she said, in a voice for the room. "Whatever you're going through."

"That's so kind," I said.

I sat in the chair she had saved for me, which was at her right hand, where she could reach me.

A waiter poured tea.

The woman across from me, a gentle one who ran the hospital auxiliary, reached over and patted my sleeve.

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