And then she had stopped outside a heavy oak door, because from behind it came a sound she recognized instantly, the way children always do.
Someone was crying.
When Adrienne finally caught up, breathless, ready to scold, Taylor only looked up at her and said, “Mommy.
There’s a very sad lady in there.” And before Adrienne could steer her away, her daughter lifted one small fist and knocked, firmly, three times, on a door that was absolutely none of their business.
Chapter 4 — The Sad Lady
The oak door opened.
A woman stood in the study, gray hair pulled neatly back, her face refined and her eyes swollen from a long time spent crying alone.
Adrienne knew her at once — not personally, but from the brass picture frames she dusted every week, the ones full of a younger version of this same face beside a boy who had grown into the man now holding court in the ballroom.
It was Marguerite Roberson.
Corbin’s mother.
There were things everyone who cleaned this building knew, the way staff always know the things the family thinks are secret.
Corbin had not spoken to his mother in nearly six months.
They had fought — bitterly, finally — over Camilla, and the rumor was that Camilla had convinced him his mother was controlling, toxic, poison in his life, until he stopped taking her calls and, eventually, told the front desk she was no longer welcome in the building.
Adrienne had dusted those brass frames every week for a year and built a whole quiet story around the people in them — the proud mother, the boy grown tall, a family that photographed as if nothing could ever come between them.