Chapter 4 - THE COAT SHE KEPT FOR FIVE YEARS
“You told me you destroyed it.”
Natalie stared at Courtney across the conference table.
Courtney's cheeks reddened.
“I said I didn't have it anymore.”
“You told me the cleaners had thrown it away.”
“Fine. I kept your coat. Is that a crime?”
“No,” I said. “But using her identity to enter restricted areas might be.”
Courtney turned toward me.
“Grant, this is ridiculous. I kept an old coat because it was expensive. That's all.”
“Where is it now?”
She hesitated.
“In the storage closet beside your old office.”
“Then we're going to look at it.”
Martin rose.
“Grant, the board meets tomorrow morning. We have a major property transaction to finalize. This personal dispute is becoming a distraction.”
“Twenty-four families being evicted isn't a distraction.”
His jaw tightened.
“The hotel has financial obligations.”
“Then show me the obligations.”
He said nothing.
I turned to the security director.
“Preserve those access logs. Nobody deletes or changes anything.”
Courtney gave an offended laugh.
“You're acting like I've stolen something.”
Natalie looked at her.
“Maybe that's because you have.”
For a moment, neither woman moved.
Then Courtney walked toward the door.
“I'm done being insulted.”
“Courtney,” I said, “you're staying until we finish.”
She stopped.
It wasn't the command that changed her expression.
It was the fact that I hadn't followed her.
Five years earlier, I would have.
We found the coat hanging inside a garment bag in the storage closet.
Dark navy wool.
Gold buttons.
A small repair near the right cuff.
Natalie touched the fabric carefully.
“My mother helped me choose this when Grant and I opened our first hotel.”
I remembered.
We'd stood outside a discount clothing store in the rain, arguing about whether we could afford a coat that cost nearly two hundred dollars.
Natalie had insisted it wasn't necessary.
Her mother had bought it for her anyway.
“She said a woman who built a hotel deserved a good winter coat,” Natalie whispered.
Courtney looked uncomfortable.
“I didn't know it meant that much.”
“You never asked.”
The pockets were empty.
There was no badge or anything else that identified whoever had carried it through the finance corridor.
But the security director explained something important.
An employee credential number could remain active even after its original plastic badge was destroyed.
A replacement badge could be issued without changing the employee's name.
“Who has permission to authorize replacements?” I asked.
“Executive administration and finance.”
I looked from Martin to Courtney.
Neither spoke.
We returned to the conference room.
I asked security to examine the access history independently and instructed Martin to preserve all financial records.
Then Natalie said something that stopped me.
“Grant, this isn't the first time someone has used your name to keep me away.”
She opened her handbag and removed a folded hotel letter.
The paper was worn almost transparent along its creases.
“I came here six weeks after the divorce.”
My throat tightened.
“What?”
“I wanted to speak to you. I was beginning to show, and I thought if you saw me in person, you might listen.”
“Why didn't you come upstairs?”
“I wasn't allowed.”
She laid the letter on the table.
“Security handed me this.”
The document was printed on Holloway Grand stationery.
It instructed all hotel personnel to deny Natalie access to company property.
It also prohibited employees from forwarding her calls, letters, or messages to the executive office.
At the bottom was my signature.
I stared at it.
I remembered ordering her employee badge canceled.
I remembered telling her to leave my office.
But I'd never ordered that every attempt to contact me be blocked.
“Natalie, I didn't issue this.”
She looked at me for a long time.
“Do you understand how difficult that is for me to believe?”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“You told me never to come back. Then a security guard gave me a letter with your signature confirming it.”
“I know what I said.”
“And I had two babies coming.”
Her voice cracked for the first time.
“I wasn't going to keep standing outside a building where their father had decided I wasn't worth hearing.”
There was nothing I could say in my defense.
I had made myself easy to deceive because I had been cruel enough to make the deception believable.
At that moment, Rosa appeared at the conference room entrance.
“Excuse me. The boys are asking for their mother.”
Natalie immediately gathered her things.
“I need to take them home.”
Before she left, I asked one question.
“Did you ever tell them about me?”
She hesitated.
“I showed them the photograph from our grand opening.”
“The one with the red ribbon?”
She nodded.
“They know we built something together.”
“Do they know who I am?”
“Not yet. I wanted them to remember that people can love each other before they learn how badly people can hurt each other.”
Then she walked away.
I stood alone with the letter in my hand.
On the back, near the bottom, I noticed faint impressions from writing on another sheet.
I tilted it toward the light.
A name appeared in the indentation.
Martin Whitcomb.
May you like
And beneath it, four words:
ALL CONTACT THROUGH COURTNEY.
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