Summary

In Chapter 8, Margaret recounts to Alice how her grandfather Gerald discovered Lawrence’s obsessive journals after his death and that Gerald’s daughter, Laura, was meant to burn them. Instead, she kept them. When Alice asks about Lawrence’s first hotel, Margaret identifies it as The Ebner. She grows tense when questioned further, revealing little beyond that her family sold it in the 1970s. She explains that Lawrence cheated his business partner, Thomas Dougherty, out of a fortune in silver, refused to face him afterward, and eventually bought a newspaper to control the story. Lawrence’s betrayal launched the family’s eventual wealth and power, and Margaret claims that the Ives legacy—and her own story—remain entwined with that original sin.

Later, Alice researches the history of the Ives family and their empire. She verifies that Lawrence’s son Gerald, not Lawrence...