Lover on Loop: Her Cruel Revenge Game novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Ninth Hand

The gallery held ninety people, as it had on the first night.

I watched them from the back wall while Darren worked the room.

Tonight there were more cameras.

Every guest had paid four hundred dollars at the door for a place at the ninth hand.

A mixing desk had been set up by the staircase, with a thin man in black wearing headphones.

At the back, by the coat rack, stood a deputy in uniform who looked bored.

June stood near the wine table with a paper cup, not looking at me, and her knuckles were white around it.

I wore the clean shirt.

The cast had come off a week ago, and the surgeon had put the hand in a brace, and every knuckle of it ached.

The oak case stood in the center aisle.

The brushes lay on their felt, ready, and the lid hung open.

At eight, Darren climbed the little dais and tapped a glass.

"Friends."

The room hushed.

"Two years ago, a man lost his boy."

A murmur.

"Two years ago, a woman lost her son. And since then they've shown us, over and over, what grief does when it has nowhere to go." He held out both hands. "Tonight, we finish it. Greer?"

The doors at the end of the hall swung open.

She came down the aisle in the gray dress.

She had her hair down, and she carried the yellow flashlight, switched on.

I had put it back together at the lake house, and set it on the hall table, and she had picked it up at dawn without a word.

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