Chapter 21: Scoreboard Night

The same private room, the same marble table, the same empty place by the door.

This time I sat in it with three men behind my chair and Posey at my elbow.

Every girl from the circle was there, because nobody in that circle could stand to miss a fall.

Cressida sat at the head of the table in white, with her patron on her right and his lawyer on her left.

At the far end, in a cheap gray suit, sat the club's security manager with a black case on his knees.

"Thank you all for coming," Cressida said, and she smiled around the room. "Tonight we finish this."

"We do," I said.

"Our friend has been so brave to come forward," Cressida said. "Tell them what you told me."

The manager cleared his throat.

"I ran the camera room for six years," he said. "On Saturday, Mr. Wynn's people ordered me to edit the Friday footage."

"And?" said the lawyer.

"I refused. They did it themselves, on the machines in my office."

"Edited how?" said the lawyer, smoothly.

"They cut the part where Ms. Prescott threatened Ms. Lyle."

"Thank you."

"That's a lie," Dorian said.

"Sit down, Mr. Faulk," said the lawyer. "Your turn will come."

He opened the black case and set a hard drive on the table.

"This is the original," Cressida said. "Every minute. It shows Lena Prescott striking me first, and it shows her plan, in her own voice."

She pressed a key on her phone, and my voice came out of the speaker, thin and flat.

*I forged those papers and bought actors to slap her.*

Half the room looked at me.

The other half looked at her.

"Is that all of it?" I said.

"It's enough."

"Maddox," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Before I do anything. I'm going to put my phone on the table."

I nodded.

He laid it face up on the marble and tapped it twice.

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