Chapter 6 - Brittany Without a Camera
We found Brittany forty minutes later in the parking garage across the street.
Not hiding.
Crying.
There was a difference.
She sat on the concrete curb beside a black SUV, her mink coat wrapped around her shoulders and both hands around a paper cup of coffee that had gone cold.
Tyler stopped when he saw her.
I stopped because he did.
Harrison had stayed upstairs to manage press calls. Elise was interviewing staff. Lena had threatened to throw anyone with a camera into the Hudson.
So it was just the three of us.
Brittany wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
"If either of you says I look better without makeup, I'm walking into traffic."
Tyler sat beside her.
"I wasn't going to say that."
"Good."
I remained standing.
She looked up at me.
"You can sit. I promise I won't have you removed from the garage."
The joke was terrible.
I sat anyway.
For a minute, cars moved above us and the ventilation fans hummed.
Tyler stared at his shoes.
Of course he did.
Brittany spoke first.
"The 'visual clutter' email came from Dana Lowell. My image consultant."
"Did you approve it?" I asked.
"I approved a plan to reduce equipment and signage in camera sight lines. I did not approve moving people because of their age."
"You joked about my clothes in front of fifty people."
"Yes."
"So forgive me if I don't find the distinction obvious."
She looked down at the cup.
"I don't blame you."
Again, no excuse.
It made staying angry more complicated.
Tyler turned toward her.
"Why did you leave?"
"Because Dana called and told me to say you had misled me about ownership."
His face tightened.
"You were misled."
"She wanted me to go live and say I was a victim of your family."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Tempting."
Brittany looked at me.
"Very."
"Why didn't you?"
She stared across the garage.
"Because I watched the clip again."
No one spoke.
"Not the part where you call Harrison. The part before."
Her fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
"I watched myself snap at that kid to give you twenty dollars."
"Devin."
"I know his name now."
The shame in her voice sounded real.
"I kept thinking I was protecting Tyler. Protecting the launch. Protecting what we were building. But I looked happy doing it."
She swallowed.
"I looked like I enjoyed making you small."
I could have said she did.
I didn't.
Tyler rubbed his palms together.
"Why were you that angry with her?"
Brittany gave him a long look.
"You know why."
"I want to hear it."
"Fine."
She turned toward me.
"When Tyler and I got engaged, he told me he did not want a big wedding because he did not want you paying for it. Then you called the venue and upgraded the reception without asking."
I opened my mouth.
She held up a hand.
"You asked later. After you had already done it."
I remembered.
The original room had a low ceiling and bad acoustics. I had known the hotel's owner. I moved them upstairs.
I had considered it a favor.
"Then we looked at apartments," Brittany continued. "We found one we liked. You bought a condo in the same neighborhood and offered it to us below market rent."
"Because the other landlord wanted six months in advance."
"I know."
Her eyes held mine.
"That's the problem. There is always a reason. A good reason. A better rate. A safer building. A smarter lawyer. A contact who can fix something faster."
Tyler said nothing.
Brittany looked at him.
"And every time I complained, you agreed with me in private and accepted her help in public."
He looked away.
She laughed once.
"There he goes."
I watched my son stare at the garage floor.
I had seen that posture a thousand times.
Until that day, I had always read it as weakness.
Now I wondered how often he had learned it because the two women beside him filled every silence before he could.
"Tyler," I said.
He looked up.
"What did you want?"
"Today?"
"All of it. The launch. The separation. The lies."
He took a long breath.
"I wanted you both to stop making me choose."
Brittany's expression hardened.
"So you lied to both of us."
"Yes."
"That is choosing."
He nodded.
"I know."
This time neither of us told him to stop saying it.
Brittany wiped her eyes again.
"Dana also told me something else."
"What?" I asked.
"She said the 'visual clutter' email was forwarded to her from Tyler's office with Calvin's name already highlighted."
Tyler's head snapped toward her.
"That's not true."
"She showed me the chain."
"Dana edits email chains for screenshots all the time."
"Then prove it."
His jaw tightened.
I recognized the beginning of denial.
Before he could continue, my phone rang.
Lena.
"Margaret," she said, "Mateo's mother is here."
I stood.
"Why?"
"Because somebody from the press called her and said her son was nearly killed covering up a luxury launch."
My stomach dropped.
"He was not nearly killed."
"I know that. She doesn't."
Lena paused.
"And she is furious."
Brittany stood too.
"I'll come."
I looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because the filming was for my campaign."
"You didn't know about the incident."
"I know about it now."
That was the first thing Brittany said all day that sounded like responsibility rather than defense.
The three of us started toward the garage exit.
Halfway there, Tyler stopped.
"Mom."
I turned.
He held out his phone.
On the screen was an email thread from his account.
Calvin's name was highlighted in yellow.
Tyler stared at it as if the device belonged to someone else.
"I didn't send this," he said.
Brittany looked at the message.
Then at him.
"Your assistant did."
"Why would she?"
Brittany's face changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"Because I asked her for a list of people Dana complained about."
The email had not been forged.
May you like
The problem was simpler and worse.
Too many people had been trying to please someone above them, and nobody had bothered to ask where the cruelty was actually coming from.
