Chapter 1 — The Daughter

Nadia had arrived at the Meridian at six-thirty, thirty minutes before guests. The event space was the gallery's signature venue — the entire fortieth floor of a building on West 57th, glass-walled on all four sides and the ceiling, the city turning forty floors of Manhattan into the exhibition. The gallery's twenty-fifth anniversary show had been six months in planning. One hundred and twelve pieces. Two hundred guests. Conrad Vane's name was on every surface."He was in good spirits," Nadia said, with the faint surprise of someone who had been expecting something different, given the conversation three days prior. "He was — Conrad at a gala was a performance. And he performed it. Perfectly, as always." She paused. "Which might have been the point.""Where was Elise Hartwell?""She arrived at seven. She and my father greeted each other the way they always did. Warmly. They were good at warmly." A pause that was not a pause. "I have watched them at a hundred events. I cannot tell you they were different that night. But I also — I kept watching Elise after my father died. And she was composed. I know people grieve differently. I know composure isn't evidence." She looked at Priya. "But her composure was the kind that was already in place. Not the kind you build while the room is falling apart.""Where were you when your father went to the terrace?""The main gallery. I saw him go out through the glass." She was quiet for a moment. "I saw him fall."The room held the weight of this briefly."One more question," Priya said. "The Hartwell partnership agreement. Do you have it?""My father's lawyer has it. Carolyn Marsh. She was at the gala." Nadia paused. "She has not returned my calls since my father died."Priya wrote down the name.She wrote down a second thing, which was not a name but a note to herself: Look at what Elise Hartwell's hands were doing between seven PM and eight forty-three.