Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO DIDN’T LOOK BACK|
Camille waited until the west doors closed before she allowed herself to breathe normally.
The ballroom had begun moving again, but it was not the same room. Conversations restarted in cautious fragments. Guests who had spent the evening pretending not to notice the staff now seemed desperate to catch Wilmer’s eye or ask Delphine a question. Rosalind Ashmore was speaking to the appraisal team in a voice so controlled that it sounded almost gentle.
Preston stood beside the table.
His face had settled into an expression Camille knew well: the one he wore whenever he believed the world had embarrassed him and somebody else needed to pay for it.
“Camille,” he said.
She picked up her bucket.
“Don't walk away from me.”
“I have work to finish.”
“You just humiliated me in front of three hundred people.”
She looked at him.
“You invited me onto that platform because you wanted them to laugh at me.”
“I was trying to make a point.”
“You made one.”
Preston stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“You think those people respect you now? They’re entertained. Tomorrow they’ll forget you exist.”
Camille tightened her grip on the handle.
“Maybe. But tonight they know my name.”
His jaw flexed.
“You're still my fiancée.”
The word sounded strange coming from him. For eleven months, Preston had treated their engagement like a charitable arrangement. He had introduced her at dinners as his future wife, then corrected people who assumed she had a career. He had chosen her dresses, criticized her accent when she spoke French, and explained her own childhood to strangers as if she had been too young to understand it.
Camille had mistaken his confidence for security.
She no longer made that mistake.
“Not for much longer,” she said.
Preston glanced around to see who might have heard.
“Don't be dramatic.”
“I’m not.”
She walked toward the service corridor. Behind her, he called her name twice, but she did not turn.
Delphine caught up with her near the kitchen.
“Baby, you all right?”
Camille tried to smile.
“I’m fine.”
“That's not what I asked.”
The older woman touched her arm. Her fingers were warm and rough from years of work.
Camille looked down.
“I don't know what happens now.”
“Now you finish your shift, go home, and sleep. Tomorrow you decide what to do with that man.”
“He won't let it go.”
“Then he can learn.”
Delphine's eyes moved toward the ballroom.
“There's something else. That gentleman who came in—the one everybody went quiet for. He asked Rosalind about you before he left.”
Camille stopped.
“What did he ask?”
“Your full name. Where you worked. Whether you had been here long.”
A cold sensation moved through Camille's stomach.
“Why?”
“I don't know. But Rosalind looked like somebody had told her the building was on fire.”
Before Camille could respond, her phone vibrated.
A message from Preston appeared.
We are leaving together. Do not embarrass me again.
She stared at it for a moment, then blocked his number.
It was the first thing she had done for herself in eleven months without wondering how he would react.
At the end of the shift, Camille changed out of her uniform and stepped into the humid New Orleans night. The street smelled of wet pavement and magnolia blossoms. A black sedan was parked across from the staff entrance.
She recognized the driver.
Tobias Cain.
He stepped out and opened the rear door.
“Miss Tibido.”
Camille did not move.
“Do I know you?”
“No, ma'am. My name is Tobias Cain. Mr. Ferraro asked me to take you home.”
“I didn't ask for a ride.”
“I understand.”
“Then close the door.”
Tobias did not argue. He simply looked toward the end of the block.
A second vehicle had pulled up behind the first.
Then a third.
Camille felt her pulse quicken.
“What is this?”
“Precaution.”
“Whose precaution?”
“Mr. Ferraro's.”
“I don't know Mr. Ferraro.”
Tobias studied her for a moment.
“That's what concerns him.”
A car horn sounded behind them. A delivery driver leaned on it, irritated by the vehicles blocking half the street.
Camille stepped away from the curb.
“I’m taking the bus.”
Tobias nodded, as though he had expected that answer.
“Then I'll make sure the bus gets you there safely.”
She turned and walked toward the stop.
The black sedans followed at a distance.
When Camille reached her apartment building twenty minutes later, she found a cream envelope tucked beneath her door. No name appeared on the front. Inside was a single photograph.
It showed a much younger Camille sitting at a kitchen table beside her father, who was leaning over an open leather case.
On the back, someone had written five words:
Your father never told you everything.
Camille read the sentence twice.
May you like
Then she noticed the date printed in the photograph's lower corner.
It had been taken three days before her father disappeared.
