Chapter 8 - The Scent of Bleach and Laundromats
“Richard… please,” Beatrice whimpered, her voice cracking into a high, pathetic whine that bore no resemblance to the imperious matriarch who had ruled Chicago society. She reached out with trembling, diamond-covered hands, trying to touch the sleeve of his polo shirt, but Richard took half a step backward, pulling Chloe with him, treating his mother’s touch as though it were radioactive poison.
“Where is she, Beatrice?” Richard demanded, his gravelly baritone vibrating with a lethal, subterranean frequency that made the crystal flutes on Table One chime against the china.
Beatrice shook her head frantically, tears of humiliated vanity finally breaching her styled mascara, running in black, muddy tracks down her powdered cheeks. “I don't know… I don't know! She’s nobody, Richard! She was a secretary from Iowa! She was never worthy of the Sterling name! I did it for you! I did it to protect your legacy from a woman who married you for your stock options!”
“She married me when I had twelve hundred dollars in a checking account and slept on a futon in Rogers Park!” Richard roared, the sound detonating across the ballroom like a cannon shot, causing several guests in the front rows to physically flinch. “She worked three jobs to pay for my master's degree while you refused to take my phone calls because I wouldn't join your country club!”
From the shadow of the service entrance, where the catering staff stood clustered in horrified silence, an older man stepped forward.
He was roughly sixty-five years old, dressed in the black tuxedo of a senior banquet captain, his hair silvered and neat. He wore a name tag that read Hector.
Hector walked with hesitant, respectful steps across the Crema Marfil marble, stopping five paces from Richard. He did not look at Beatrice Sterling; he looked at the little girl holding Richard’s trousers with an expression of profound, sorrowful compassion.
“Mr. Sterling,” Hector said softly, his voice carrying the quiet, unshakeable dignity of an honest working man.
Richard’s head snapped toward him, his dark eyes alert, his protective arm tightening around Chloe. “Who are you?”
“I’m the banquet manager for this floor, sir,” Hector answered, speaking in a low, steady cadence that resonated clearly in the silent room. “And my sister runs the overnight laundry shift at the Lincoln Park Linen Service on 26th Street.”
Beatrice’s head snapped toward Hector, her eyes bulging with sudden, hysterical panic. “Hector! Shut your mouth! You are an employee of this hotel—’
“Be silent, Beatrice,” Richard barked, not even turning his head toward her, his eyes locked on the banquet captain. “Speak, Hector. Tell me.”
Hector took a deep breath, looking directly into Richard’s desperate, tortured face.
“Her name is Claire, isn't it, sir?” Hector asked gently.
Richard’s throat clicked, a hot tear escaping his lower lash. “Yes. Claire Sterling.”
“She’s at the 26th Street facility right now, Mr. Sterling,” Hector said, his words dropping like cool rain onto a burning desert. “She works the three-to-midnight press line, ironing commercial sheets for the hospitals. She brings Chloe with her when school lets out, but Mrs. Sterling’s private driver arrived at the loading dock two hours ago. He told Claire that you had landed at O’Hare, that you had requested Chloe be brought to the Drake for a family reunion, and that Claire was forbidden from stepping foot on the property under threat of arrest.”
May you like
Hector looked down at Chloe’s dirty face, his eyes moist with indignation.
“Claire didn't have the fare for the bus, sir,” Hector whispered. “She’s walking north on Michigan Avenue right now in the rain, trying to reach the hotel on foot so she can wait for her baby outside the service alley.”
