Claire looked toward the front desk, the polished surface that Graham had used as a barrier between people he considered important and people he did not. She imagined the drawing where every arriving traveler could see it, plain paper beneath a beautiful chandelier. "Behind the desk," she said. "Where every guest can see it."
Tessa held the picture against her chest. She glanced toward the space above the registration counter, where framed photographs of the hotel's awards occupied an entire wall. For years those certificates had testified to a kind of excellence that had failed completely when it mattered. She thought the yellow sun would look very different among them.
Daniel gently touched Claire's elbow. "First, let's get you dry. You don't have to do anything else tonight."
Claire looked at the lobby one more time. Graham stood near the service corridor under the supervision of a regional manager who had just arrived, his shoulders slumped and his badge missing. Employees were beginning to move again, answering phones, assisting travelers, and restoring a rhythm that had been interrupted by one man's determination to be obeyed. She felt relief, but she knew relief was not the same thing as a repaired institution.
"We'll talk about the hotel tomorrow," she told Daniel. "Tonight I want some tea and a dry place to spread out these pictures."
"That," he said, taking the damp cardboard from her hands, "I can arrange."
The suite reserved for Daniel occupied a quiet corner of the hotel's nineteenth floor. Its windows overlooked a river of headlights crossing the wet streets, and its furnishings seemed chosen to persuade guests that nothing unfortunate could ever happen within such expensive walls. There was a bowl of fruit on the table, fresh flowers beside the television, and a handwritten welcome card from the Bellwether management team. Claire noticed the signature at the bottom: Graham Vance.
She set the card facedown. Daniel saw her do it and said nothing. He had been furious during the ride up in the elevator, but the sight of Claire standing beside the window in wet clothing reminded him that anger could wait until she was warm. He asked whether she wanted him to call a doctor, and she told him her arm was sore, not seriously injured. He asked again because he knew she tended to make her own discomfort smaller when other people were worried.
"I'll have it checked," she agreed at last. "But I'd like to take off these shoes first."
Daniel knelt without ceremony to help her with the stubborn heel that had caught in the wet lining of her coat. She laughed softly when he told her the shoes looked as though they had survived a flood. He glanced up, relieved to hear that sound, and saw tears standing in her eyes despite the laughter. She had held herself together downstairs because the staff and guests were watching. Upstairs, with the door closed, she no longer had to.