The Silver Bracelet

Chapter 10 — The Woman in Pearls

"Mrs. Thorne." Vera took one step forward. The cameras, almost as one, focused. "When I was thirteen, you told me, in the kitchen of the house on Route 11, that I was 'a burden God had sent you to bear.' When I was fifteen, you told me, in the same kitchen, that I was 'worth less than the dog.' When I was seventeen, you attempted to sell me, for the second time, to a family in Binghamton whose son was bedridden, in exchange for fifteen thousand dollars. The first time, I was eleven. The price then was ten thousand. I have, in my possession, the notarized agreement from the second attempt. I have, in addition, the names and contact information of the Binghamton family, who were, when I last spoke to them in March of last year, willing to confirm the arrangement in writing."

The crowd had gone utterly silent. Even the boom operators had stopped moving. Maggie Thorne, in her brown coat, was staring at her foster daughter with a face Vera had never, in nineteen years, seen the woman wear — the face of a person who has been caught, in public, in a lie she had told for so long she had forgotten it was a lie.

"That's — that's a lie —" Maggie's voice had gone thin and high. "I never — you're making that up —"

"Mrs. Thorne," Vera said, in the same even voice. "Who paid you to come here this morning."

The murmur went through the crowd like a wave. Maggie's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I — I don't know what you're —"

"You flew from Syracuse to Burbank yesterday on a first-class ticket. The ticket was purchased, last Friday, by a third party. You are staying at the Beverly Hilton, in a suite, on the same third party's credit card. The brown coat you are wearing was purchased, also last Friday, at a Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. I do not know, Mrs. Thorne, what you were paid to come here. I know that you were paid. I know, in addition, that the person who paid you is not, at this moment, in this crowd. They are, however, watching. I would invite them, if they have any courage at all, to step forward."

For one, two, three heartbeats, no one in the crowd moved. Then, at the very back of the crowd, a small, well-dressed woman with dark hair and elegant pearls turned, very quietly, and began to walk toward the long black car at the end of the row.

Vera did not call after her. She did not need to. Every camera in the crowd, with the unholy instinct of the press, had already swung to follow the woman in the pearls.

* * *

"Miss Thorne."

The voice, behind her, was low and quiet. Vera turned. Phoenix Rayne was standing three paces behind her, in a charcoal coat, with his hands in his pockets and his face, in the cold December morning, very pale. Behind him, a tall, hard-faced woman in a Hemisphere Pictures jacket was already speaking rapidly into a phone.

"I —" Vera began.

"I heard," Phoenix said. "I was in the lobby when Nina came in. She told me you'd gone to the back gate." He paused. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes," Vera said. "I did."

He looked at her for a long, evaluative moment. Then, very quietly: "The woman in the pearls. The one who just got into the car. Do you know her."

Vera hesitated. She did not, in fact, know the woman — but she had, in the last six weeks, seen her face once before, on the show's promotional material. The woman in the pearls was, Vera realized with a small, cold jolt, the Ashford family — the family whose missing daughter had been, for thirteen years, the subject of a quiet, well-funded, much-publicized search. The woman in the pearls was the Ashford family's adopted daughter. Her name, if Vera remembered correctly, was Cecilia.

"I —" Vera said again, and stopped. "I don't know her personally. I know who she is."

"So do I," Phoenix said. His voice had gone very flat. "Evan Hamilton knows her as well. They were at school together. She has, for reasons I do not fully understand, been trying to undermine contestants on this cycle for the last three weeks. Evan has been tracking her. He has, as of about ten minutes ago, enough to take to the lawyers."

"Mr. Rayne —"

"Phoenix." He took a step forward. His face, in the cold morning light, was the face from the rehearsal room on Thursday — the face of a man who has recognized something he did not expect to find. "I am going to say something to you that you did not ask me to say. I am saying it because I have been in this industry for fifteen years, and I have seen, in those fifteen years, a great many people destroyed by the press for sport. You are not, in my professional opinion, going to be one of them. I am, as of this moment, going on the record, on camera, with my full name, to say so. You may, of course, refuse my help. I would not, in your position, refuse it."

Vera looked at him. She did not, in that moment, know what to say. She had been raised by Maggie Thorne. She had not, in twenty years, been offered help that did not come with a cost.

"I —" she began.

"Vera." Phoenix took her hand. It was, she registered with a small, distant shock, the first time in her life a man who was not a doctor had taken her hand. "Let me do this."

She did not pull away. She did not, in that moment, have the strength to. She nodded, once.

Phoenix turned to the cameras, which had already swung back to the two of them. The hard-faced woman in the Hemisphere jacket had, Vera noticed, stationed herself at Vera's other elbow. The boom mics, all thirty of them, were pointed at Phoenix's face.

"My name is Phoenix Rayne," he said, in the same low, quiet voice. "I am a mentor on this program. I have known Miss Vera Thorne for nine days. In those nine days I have seen her work, in rehearsal, with a discipline and a generosity I have rarely seen in twenty years in this industry. What you have just witnessed, at this gate, was not a mother confronting a daughter. It was a paid harassment, organized by a third party who is, at this moment, in that car at the end of the block. I am, as of this moment, formally requesting that Hemisphere Pictures and the producers of Screen Star open an investigation into the matter. I am, in addition, offering my personal assurance that Miss Thorne has my full support. Any further questions should be directed to the Hemisphere legal team."

He did not wait for the questions. He turned, still holding Vera's hand, and walked her, through the silent crowd, back around the block to the front gate of the soundstage. At the front gate, he let go of her hand. He looked at her for a long moment.

"Go up to the Green Room," he said. "Marcy is waiting. I will be up in ten minutes. Don't, in the meantime, look at your phone."

Vera nodded. She turned to go. At the door of the soundstage, she paused and looked back. Phoenix was still standing at the gate, his hands in his pockets, his face turned toward the street where the long black car had been. The car was gone. The cameras were still there.

She went inside. She took the elevator to the Green Room. She sat down in the folding chair next to Nina, who took her hand and did not, for a long time, say anything at all.

In her other hand, in her lap, her phone was vibrating without pause. She did not look at it. She did not, for the first time in twenty years, want to know what Maggie Thorne had to say. She had said, at the gate, everything she had ever needed to say to Maggie Thorne. She was, she realized with a small, exhausted clarity, finished.

What she was not finished with, she understood, was the woman in the pearls. The woman in the pearls was a problem she did not yet know how to solve. She suspected, with the cold, weary certainty of a woman who had been hunted before, that she was going to need help to solve it.

The help, when it came, was going to come from a direction she did not expect.