Chapter 5: Leontine

The elevator opened on the lobby, and Leontine Fairgrave was leaning on the security desk with a coffee in each hand.

She held one out to me.

"You have six minutes," she said. "I counted."

"Who told you I was coming?"

"Nobody tells me anything. I read his calendar."

She tipped her head toward a door marked with a small brass woman.

"Come on."

The ladies' room was marble and empty.

Leontine locked the door and set the coffees on the sink.

Up close she was taller than I remembered, with a dark crop and a wide, tired, intelligent face.

"Before you say anything," she said, "I'm not sleeping with your ex-husband."

"I didn't think-"

"You thought it on Thursday. I watched you think it."

She leaned a hip on the counter.

"I'm gay, Juliana. I've been gay since the seventh grade."

"The Granger board has been trying to marry me to Rhodri since I was twenty-four."

"My family owns a bank and his owns the rest of the city."

"He gets them off his back by letting me stand next to him at parties."

I laughed once, a helpless sound.

"That's why you had his arm."

"That's why I had his arm. I hold his arm and the board stops talking."

She watched me.

"He didn't want you to think it. He told me not to come near you. I'm doing it anyway."

"Why?"

"Because he's been staring at that wall for three days like it owes him money."

She reached into her purse and took out a phone.

It was a tiny flip phone, cheap and gray.

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