Chapter 27: In Cuffs

I pulled the box back before his fingers closed on it.

Preston's hand found my wrist instead.

He wrenched it, and the velvet box spun out of my grip and skidded across the asphalt toward the edge.

"No!" he shouted.

He dove for it.

He hit the road on his stomach with both arms stretched out, and the box stopped against the base of the guardrail, a foot from the drop.

His fingers closed on it.

A boot came down on his wrist.

"Don't move," said Jasper.

Preston looked up, and Jasper looked down at him.

"You put your hand on her," Jasper said. "In front of me."

"Jasper," I said.

"I know." He did not take his boot off. "I'm only holding him still."

Four agents reached us at once.

They rolled Preston onto his face and pulled both his arms behind him, and the cuffs closed with two clicks I heard over the helicopter.

"Preston Ames, you are under arrest for kidnapping, conspiracy, fraud and arson."

"Arson?" he said into the road.

"We heard the confession, same as everybody."

They hauled him up by the elbows.

His hair was in his eyes, and his tie was torn, and there was a cut on his cheek from the gravel.

The news helicopter dropped lower to get the shot.

I stood on the cliff road and watched the most powerful man I had ever known be walked past a crowd of cameras with his hands behind his back.

He tried to speak.

"Imogen. The box. Please, just the box."

I walked over to the guardrail, picked it up, and turned it over in my hand.

Then I slid it into the pocket of the agent who was holding his arm.

"Evidence," I said.

Preston made a sound I had never heard from him.

They put him in the back of a dark sedan, and the door shut.

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