Chapter 18: The Stand-In

Delphine looked at the photograph on Winnie's phone and went white.

"That's a Greyline lanyard," she said.

We were in Winnie's kitchen at seven on Saturday morning, with Winnie in scrubs eating cereal out of the box.

"Is that bad?"

"Greyline is the agency we hire for banquet staff."

Delphine put the phone down hard.

"The Holloway Grand books them for every event. Jarrett's committees book them too."

"So she worked for you," I said.

"She worked a Holloway event. I just need to know which one."

She opened her laptop on the counter.

She was still locked out of the company system, but the agency's scheduling portal took her old password.

"Never trust a vendor with your login," she muttered.

"You're breaking into a staffing site."

"I'm checking my own bookings, Justine."

Her fingers flew.

"Private booking, last Wednesday. One stand-in, cash rate, client reference: counsel for Mr. W. Holloway."

She stopped.

"What?"

"The lawyer booked her himself. The agency has her name and her address."

Winnie put down the cereal.

"A stand-in," she said. "For the rig."

"For you," Delphine said.

I felt cold.

"He sat at the next table while she watched me, and he told her what coat I wear."

Delphine had an address in two minutes.

Winnie found her car keys.

"I'm coming," she said. "I've been tired for three years and I'd like to be tired in a car chase."

The address was a third-floor walk-up above a laundromat.

The woman who opened the door stared at me through the chain.

She was thirty-one or thirty-two, with her hair freshly dyed to my light brown.

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