Chapter Nine
Madrigal
She had not expected the silence.
Two weeks after the photographs, and no fallout that she could identify.
No social rumors. No distant or wounded Winona at the one mutual event they'd attended, a charity preview at the art museum—Winona had been present, poised, and had said nothing to Madrigal beyond the polite minimum.
Townes had been beside his wife. Not performing togetherness—that she would have recognized and dismissed—but present in a way that was different from the last time she'd seen them together.
More oriented. Like a compass finding north.
She did not like this.
She reviewed her choices. The photographs had been pristine. The placement was correct. She had not made errors. But something had shifted and she could not identify the variable.
She called Brycen Henley on the pretext of the redistribution of her account, which she had been meaning to challenge anyway.
He informed her, in his comfortable oblivious way, that her account had been reassigned to a junior partner and that Townes had initiated the change three weeks ago.
Three weeks ago—before the photographs. Before anything she'd set in motion.
She sat with this information.
He had already been distancing himself professionally before the photographs were found. He had not told his wife to protect her from alarm. He had acted to end the professional relationship because he was, irritatingly and completely, a man who did not want what she was offering.
She felt something she rarely permitted, the cold awareness of miscalculation.
She prepared for her gallery reception on autopilot, directing her assistant, managing the catering, approving the wine list. The event had been planned for weeks—a gathering of clients and collectors, social capital well invested.
She was good at these events. They were her native environment, the place where she was most herself.
She did not consider, as she went through the preparations, that she had left tracks. She was good at covering tracks. She had been good at it since she was young.
She did not consider Winona Carrington seriously as an investigator. That, she would later understand, was the most expensive mistake she had made.