Chapter 19: What He Wants

Sullivan's POV

The ballroom emptied slowly, in small, shaken groups.

I stayed by the door until the last of them passed me.

A man in a good suit stopped and said, "You came in with Mrs. Roark, didn't you?"

"She's my friend," I said, which surprised me.

He nodded and went out.

June came out of the cloakroom with Calvin's mother on one side and his sister on the other.

The old woman had her purse clamped under her arm.

She looked ready to say "I raised him better" to the nearest wall.

"She'll sleep at our house tonight," the sister told me. "Sonya asked. She said she needed an hour alone."

"Where is she?"

"She went to get her car."

I found it on the second level of the hotel garage, parked crooked under a flickering light.

Sonya was in the driver's seat with the door shut.

She had her head tipped against the window and her shoes off, and her clutch lay open in her lap.

She was asleep.

I stood a few feet away and did not move.

I had expected, honestly, to find her on the phone with him.

I had pictured the call.

I had pictured her saying in that steady voice that they could work something out.

Because he had cried, or because his mother had pleaded, or because June would be hurt.

I'd seen it happen across my desk more times than I could count.