The One He Never Held novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Gala
The anniversary gala filled the great hall of the Cultural Center with candlelight and three hundred people in black.
A string quartet played under the marble stairs. Photographers lined the velvet rope.
I wore the green dress for the third time. Damian stood beside me in a dinner jacket cut loose over his taped ribs.
His stitched eyebrow was the one thing nobody had dared to ask about.
Hailey wore white and held a bath towel in her arms.
Behind her, hidden by a pillar, the bookkeeper stood in a waiter's black jacket with a tray in both hands.
"He's gray," Hailey whispered. "Is he going to faint?"
"He's going to talk," I said.
"I'm going to throw up."
"Do that after."
At eight, Lionel climbed onto the low stage in the front of the hall.
He wore a white tie. His hair shone.
He took the microphone from its stand, and the whole room fell quiet for him the way it always had.
"Friends." The warm slow voice rolled out over the candles. "Forty years ago, my partner Harold Deverill and I opened a small office with one telephone."
Polite laughter.
"Tonight we celebrate what we built, and the families who built it. I want to thank..."
"Daddy."
Hailey stepped out from behind the pillar.
She walked straight down the aisle between the tables with the towel in her arms.
Heads turned as she passed.
Lionel's smile held.
"Hailey, darling. You should be resting."
"I will in a minute." She climbed the three steps. "I have something that belongs to you."
She unfolded the towel.
The black ledger lay on her hands, the brass clasp bright under the lights.
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