Chapter 21: The Gala

The Harlan Falls Convention Center had never looked so good.

Three hundred people sat at round tables under paper snowflakes, eating chicken and clapping politely for scholarship winners.

I stood in the audio booth at the back of the hall with a laptop, a remote and a cup of cold coffee.

My tie was crooked.

Freja leaned in the booth door in a dark green dress that made me forget what the remote was for.

"Breathe," she said.

"I am."

"You're holding the clicker like a grenade."

"It might be one."

She straightened my tie, and kissed me quickly, and went to sit at the front table, alone, in the chair that said Mrs. Tolland.

Somebody gasped when she took it.

Dean sat at the head table in a new tux.

He looked magnificent, and he knew it.

He had been suspended for a month, and the whole room had come anyway.

It was a free dinner, and a town likes to see what happens.

Lindsay wasn't there.

She had told me on Thursday that she would stay away.

"I won't walk to that stage," she had said. "I'm not going to be in his picture."

The gala chair took the podium.

"We've come to the part of the evening," she began, "where we recognize one of our own."

Dean's hand twitched on his water glass.

"Before we do, the foundation would like to share a short look at the year. Mr. Niskanen, if you please."

My heart began to go, hard and steady.

I clicked the remote.

The first slide was a photo of the lake.

The second was a winter school fair, with children laughing.

"Cute," said the woman at the nearest table.

The third slide was black.

Then there was a tent.

It filled the whole screen, twenty feet high, with a little wooden sign beside it that said 3.

There was a crackle of wind.

Through the open flap came a kiss, and a laugh the whole room knew.

Three hundred people went absolutely silent.

I let the full video play.

Dean's low laugh came out of the speakers, larger than life.

Lindsay's voice followed it, soft and happy.

"Girls' week," somebody whispered at the nearest table, in horror.

Dean was on his feet.

"Turn that off!" he shouted. "This is slander. It's been doctored!"

I clicked once more.

The next slide was a phone screen, the cheap black phone that had been in Freja's coat.

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