Chapter 6: Two A.M.

At two in the morning I gave up on sleep and went to find the kitchen.

I had been replaying the buttons for four hours.

Forty of them, one at a time, and one knuckle.

The apartment was dark except for a strip of light under the kitchen door.

Heath stood at the stove in a grey T-shirt and bare feet, cracking eggs into a pan.

He didn't turn around.

"You can't sleep either," he said.

"Dex's video."

"Yes."

"Tucker chose that hotel because you sit at that bar." I took a stool at the counter. "He wanted me to run to you. Why would a man want that?"

"So that when you did, he could say I took you." Heath pushed the eggs around with a spatula. "The way he says I took everything else."

"What did you take?"

He didn't answer.

I looked at his back and let it go, because I'd promised.

"Dex says he'll run the screens at the ballroom on Saturday," I said instead. "He wants to make it right."

"Do you trust him?"

"I trust the video."

"Good." The oil in the pan popped. "That's the correct answer."

A drop of it jumped out and landed on his forearm.

He didn't flinch. He just looked at it.

I was off the stool before I'd decided to move.

"Don't," he said. "It's nothing."

"You've got a burn on top of a burn."