Chapter 16: What He Said

Nobody at the table spoke.

The recording ended with a clink of ice.

The silence after it was worse than the voice.

Tristan's mother had both hands flat on the cloth.

Hugh sat back and let it work on them.

"I'm sorry," he said, with a small, regretful shrug.

"He was twenty-two and heartbroken. I kept it because I knew one day he'd forget."

"You kept it for six years," Mr. Hunsicker said.

"A friend keeps things."

Tristan stood up.

I thought he would shout, and he didn't.

"That's my voice," he said.

"I said it. I was drunk, and I meant it."

He looked down the table at his own mother.

"I never asked him to steal. But I never asked anyone to check either."

"That part is mine. I didn't want to know, so I didn't look."

"That's the part I have to pay for."

It was a good speech, and for half a second I felt the table lean toward him.

Then Margot pushed back her chair.

"Sit down, Tristan," she said. "You're not done yet."

"Margot," her father began.

"No, Daddy. I'm going to say something, and then you can all decide what I am."

She did not raise her voice.

"Two weeks ago I was on a yacht with this man."

"A call came in from a hospital. He answered it on deck, and he put it on speaker."

She turned the diamond on her finger.

"A nurse said a woman was in surgery and needed five thousand dollars. Tristan laughed."

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