Chapter 6: What Claudette Did in 2001
The private conversation happened in the venue's side office — a small room with a round table, four chairs, and a window that looked out onto the parking lot where two more journalists had apparently arrived and were now speaking to departing guests.
Claudette had requested it.
Serena had agreed, on the condition that one of the men in suits remained in the room.
They sat across from each other.
Claudette had her phone face-down on the table.
Her attorney had told her, in the brief call, to say nothing.
She was going to say something anyway.
Serena could tell by the way she'd walked into the room — not defeated, but recalculating.
"Your mother," Claudette began, "was not supposed to be on that property list."
Serena said nothing.
"Victor handled acquisitions.
I handled the public side — events, charity, the family name.
I didn't review individual files." She paused.
"I want you to understand that."
"I understand that you're telling me that," Serena said.
Claudette's mouth pressed together.
"It's the truth."
"Mrs.
Hargrove.
You called my mother in March of 2001.
From your personal cell phone.
I have the phone record." Serena reached into the envelope and placed the third document on the table.
"You told her that if she involved an attorney, the county would move to condemn the property on environmental grounds.
You told her the process would take years and cost more than the property was worth." A pause.
"That call lasted eleven minutes."
Claudette looked at the document.
She did not pick it up.
"Gerald kept the call log," Serena said.
"He kept everything, Mrs.
Hargrove.
He kept it because he said he knew, even then, that someone would eventually need it."
The parking lot outside the window was filling with people — guests leaving, a third journalist now visible near the entrance, a catering van that had been there all morning and now looked oddly out of place.
"What do you want from me specifically?" Claudette asked.
"Not the company.
Me."
"I want you to say it out loud."
Claudette looked up.
"In that room," Serena said.
"In front of the people who are still there.
I want you to say what you did."
"That will never happen."
"Then we have nothing to discuss privately."
Claudette stood.
Serena didn't move.
"You're asking me to destroy my family," Claudette said.
"You did that in March of 2001," Serena said.
"I'm asking you to acknowledge it."
The silence between them was long enough that the sound of the parking lot — car doors, voices, a phone ringing somewhere — became audible through the glass.
Then Claudette said something Serena had not expected.
"Eleanor called me back," she said.
"Two days after.
She called my personal number and she asked me — she asked me if there was any other way." Claudette's voice had gone very flat.
"I told her no."
Serena's hands were still on the table.
"She cried," Claudette said.
"On the phone.
She cried and she asked me if I had children, and I told her yes, and she said—" Claudette stopped.
Started again.
"She said she hoped they never needed someone's help and found out the world worked the way I'd just told her it did."
The room was very quiet.
"I thought about that for a long time afterward," Claudette said.
"Not long enough," Serena said.
Claudette didn't argue.
She sat back down.
She looked at her phone.
She looked at the document on the table.
She looked at Serena — really looked, the way she hadn't allowed herself to in the ballroom — and whatever she saw there made her close her eyes for just a moment.
"If I do what you're asking," she said.
"If I go back in there and say it.
What happens to Daniel?"
"That's not my decision."
"He didn't know any of this."
"I know he didn't."
"He's a good man." Her voice was steady but something underneath it was not.
"Whatever Victor and I did — Daniel is a good man."
"Then he'll find a way through it," Serena said.
"Good people usually do."
Claudette picked up the document.
Read it.
Set it back down.
"Give me five minutes," she said.
Serena stood.
May you like
"You have three," she said.
"Patricia is already writing."
