Chapter 7: Nice Dress

I sat up with the napkin in my hand and smiled at Ryland.

He was telling Keely about the ice sculpture again.

Under the table I typed with one thumb.

"Tomorrow. Six."

The answer came before dessert plates were cleared.

"Five. My office. Come as whoever you want."

At five in the morning I walked up the mezzanine stairs in my own face.

Jeans. A gray sweater. My hair in a knot. The ring still on my finger from the dinner, because I'd been too tired to take it off.

The lobby was dark except for the clock over the front desk.

Still two minutes slow.

Colm was standing at the window of his office with his back to the door, looking down at the lobby.

He didn't turn around when I came in.

"How long?" he said.

"Since I walked into your suite with a cake."

"You knew who I was in the hall."

"You told me who you were in the hall."

"And you let me hire you."

"You didn't ask who I was. You said you didn't need to know."

He turned then.

"I sat across a table from you last night," he said, "and watched my nephew put his hand on your knee. And I had already almost kissed you."

"I know."

"Do you know what that felt like?"

"Yes," I said. "I was the one with the hand on my knee."

That stopped him.

I put my tote on his desk and took out the notebook.

I opened it to the last page and laid it in front of him.

Then I told him everything.

My job. My six years. The firewall. The login on a night I was in Chicago.

Keely in the editor's glass office with her hand on my shoulder.

Dell on the floor by the door. The forty names.

He listened without interrupting once.

When I was done he sat down behind the desk and looked at the notebook for a long time.

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