My mother put a hand on Courtney’s arm, not to comfort her, but to stop her from speaking. Patricia had always known when a battlefield changed.
“Madeline,” she said, softer now, “may we speak privately?”
“No.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Not everything needs to be handled in public.”
I glanced around the room, then back at her.
“You started in public.”
A man near the bar coughed into his napkin. His wife kicked him under the table.
Courtney leaned forward, lowering her voice, though everyone could still hear her.
“You have no idea what you’re doing. This place is old money. It’s reputation. It’s relationships. You can’t just walk in with some investor group and pretend you belong.”
I closed the folder in front of me.
“Courtney, you just demanded the owner be summoned so I could be thrown out of my own dining room.”
Her lips pressed together.
“You hid behind a shell company.”
“I used an investment group. There’s a difference. One is strategy. The other is what you used to reroute my commissions at Anderson Real Estate.”
My mother’s hand tightened on Courtney’s arm.
There it was.
The first real silence.
Not shock from strangers.
Fear from family.
Courtney’s eyes flicked toward the tables nearest us.
“You’re insane,” she said.
“Careful,” I replied. “That word worked better when nobody had paperwork.”
Charles stepped beside me, holding a black leather folio.
“Ms. Anderson, Ms. Sloan asked me to inform you that she is ten minutes out. Mr. Vail is in the lounge.”
My mother went still.
“Thomas Vail is here?”
“Yes,” Charles said.
Courtney looked at her. “Who is Thomas Vail?”
My mother did not answer.
I did.
“Board chair. Former bank president. Also the man you told last month that I had a gambling problem and had borrowed money from you.”
Courtney stared at my mother.
Patricia’s face hardened. “I was protecting the family from your reckless choices.”
“Were you?” I opened the folio Charles had placed in front of me and removed a single sheet. “Because Thomas Vail also happens to sit on the charity finance committee for your foundation luncheon next week. The one you planned to host here. The one where you listed Courtney as co-chair and me as an unpaid administrative contact without asking.”
My mother’s eyes flickered.
“You were not supposed to see that.”
“No,” I said. “I imagine I wasn’t supposed to see a lot of things.”