Chapter 9: Mine to Win

"Twenty thousand?" Wynn said, with a croissant halfway to her mouth.

I turned the phone around so Ephraim could read it.

His face did nothing.

"That's what he asked," I said. "The other twenty thousand."

"Then it's his opinion," said Ephraim.

"You paid a man twenty thousand dollars to go home."

"I paid him enough."

"Where does a driver get twenty thousand dollars?"

Wynn made a small noise, and Ephraim's eyes went to the ceiling for the length of one breath.

"I sold something," he said. "It's gone. I don't miss it."

"Sold what?"

"A watch I didn't like."

Wynn bit into the croissant to hide her face.

I didn't believe him, exactly.

I also didn't have the strength to fight a man who'd made me eggs.

I typed a reply with my thumb and sent it before I could think.

"Who are you?"

The answer came in under a minute.

"Tuesday. Your door. Bring the one in the gray suit."

I put the phone face down on the table.

"Okay," I said. "That's a plan."

On Monday morning I sat in a tiny office on Tremont Street across from the lawyer whose friend had missed page fourteen.

He was young, and sweating, and sorry.

"It's real, Hallie," he said.

"I know."

"Unless you can show the booking was arranged by him, I can't make it go away."

"I did pay him."

"Then you need the other man."

"The escort."

"The escort, his invoice, anything that shows Lawson sent him."

"You need a witness who isn't you." He glanced at the clock. "And you need it before the sixty days run out."

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