“I’ll be there.”
Ninety seconds and she came back inside with the phone held out.
I took it.
“Coulter.” Warren’s voice was the same as it had been in Beverly Hills: directives, no inflection, the man who expected compliance in advance. “I wanted to thank you for the work this week. London will be returning to LA. I trust we can put this behind us and get her back on a normal schedule.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “Before you go—I want to say one thing.”
A pause. He wasn’t accustomed to one-things.
“London isn’t a liability,” I said. “She was never a liability. You’ve been managing the wrong version of her for twenty-sixyears. She’s going to Wharton. She’s going to make something real with her name and her platform.”
Silence on the line.
“She’s my daughter,” Warren said finally.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m telling you.”
I handed the phone back to London.
She was watching me. Her eyes were bright and her jaw was tight and for one second she looked like she was going to say something complicated. Then she pressed her lips together and turned away and went to the window and looked out at the valley.
I gave her a minute.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, without turning around.
“No.”
“He’s not going to change overnight.”
“Probably not.”
“He might not change at all.”
“That’s his problem,” I said. “Not yours.”
She stood at the window a moment longer. Then she turned around. Her jaw had gone loose and her eyes were clear in a way they hadn’t been when she walked through my door five days ago.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s pack up.”
We worked through the cabin together—dishes back in their places, the bed stripped and the sheets stacked, the firewood restocked from the pile under the eave for when they came back. London moved through the space with a quiet efficiency that was nothing like the organized chaos of the penthouse, and I watched her fold a blanket and set it on the shelf.
She found the fortune cookie slip on the nightstand, still there from four nights ago. She looked at it for a moment, then folded it once and put it in the pocket of the flannel.
“Evidence,” she said.
“Of what?”
“That I was here.” She looked at the room one last time—the stone fireplace, the window, the valley view. “That this happened.”
I picked up the bag. “Ready?”
She looked at me.
“No,” she said. “But let’s go anyway.”
Outside, the morning had gone fully clear, the peaks white and definite against the blue, the air smelling like pine and cold water and the high-altitude clarity that the valley below would never have. She stopped at the top of the porch steps and looked out at it for a long moment.
