Chapter 19: The Board

By Wednesday morning every ballroom in the city had refused Chloe.

Vaughn's security chief had confirmed it by phone, with a list.

The Grand Plaza had cancelled her inquiry.

The Lakeshore Club had stopped answering emails.

Two hotel chains had said, politely, that they did not host events with an unresolved police inquiry attached.

"She posted a date for four hundred donors and has no room," I said.

"Her board met last night at her flat," said the security chief. "Three people, and her. They want a venue by noon."

"Who are the three?"

"A church treasurer, a retired dentist and a woman who ran her last fundraiser."

"Do they know about the notebook?"

"Not yet."

I looked at Vaughn across his desk.

He had been watching me think.

"You have an idea," he said.

"I have a ballroom."

"I want your forty-first floor garden room. The big one, with the glass wall and the stage. You offer it free."

"To the woman who locked you in an attic."

"To her board," I said. "In front of her, and on the record."

"She'll refuse."

"She can't refuse. It's a free room, a famous hotel and a donor list that already knows her name."

"What do you want it for?"

"A stage," I said. "A screen and a sound system I set up myself. Four hundred people sitting down for her."

He leaned back slowly.

"Say the rest."

"She asked me to look at her box. She wanted me on camera. All right. I'd like her on mine."

Vaughn considered that for the length of one breath.

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