Chapter 8: The Luncheon

My squad turned around one by one and looked at me.

On the screen my father kept talking.

"We're very proud of her," he said. "She's finally doing something for the family."

Finally.

I'd been a cop for nine years.

I'd carried a man down from the Throgs Neck Bridge in the rain.

Finally.

【Oh my GOD, that dad.】

【This is worse than anything Lucas did in the book and I'm including chapter 30.】

A detective from my squad turned the TV off without being asked.

Marge looked at me over her reading glasses.

"You want the afternoon?"

"No," I said. "I want Thursday."

Thursday was the Thackeray Foundation's autumn luncheon at the Pierre.

Two hundred guests. Aldous hosting. Kitty at his side as his brand-new fiancée.

It was on Lucas's calendar, which was on my phone, because that was the deal.

I wasn't invited.

I went anyway.

I wore my windbreaker.

The ballroom was all white roses and women in camel coats.

Aldous was at the podium, telling a gentle story about a children's literacy program.

Lucas sat at the family table near the front with his grandmother, his jaw tight.

Kitty sat beside the podium in pale pink, holding a glass of champagne.

She saw me first.

Her smile slipped.

Then a woman at table six saw me and whispered, and the whisper went around the room.

Aldous looked up.

He didn't miss a beat.

"And here she is," he said warmly into the mic. "Jules. My new cousin. Come up, please. Everyone's been dying to meet you."

He held the microphone out to me.

He thought he was being kind.

Or he wanted two hundred people to watch me stammer.

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