Chapter 7: The Microphone

"Now," I said.

Bea hit a key.

The screen cut to black in the middle of my own shouting face, and the music stopped.

The ballroom went silent.

Brooks, still on the stage, turned his head toward the screen.

Then the kitchen filled it.

His marble counter, his espresso machine, and me at the island with a folder.

"I'm not saying no, Brooks," my voice said, calm and clear through every speaker in the room. "I'm saying let my lawyer read it first."

Brooks's face lost its color.

"Turn that off," he said into the microphone.

Nobody moved.

On the screen, he said, "Mine wrote this."

"Your side of the schedule is blank."

"Mine is being provided."

A murmur ran across the tables.

"That's his voice," a woman said, quite loudly, near the front. "That's Brooks."

"Stop the film!" Brooks said. "Someone stop it!"

Sierra ran for the sound board with her laptop under her arm.

A man in a headset stepped in front of her and shook his head.

Bea's cousin, I thought.

He had no intention of letting her through.

The recording kept going.

I watched the room watch it, four hundred faces in the dark.

They saw me ask for a lawyer.

They saw Brooks step into the frame.

"Or the party doesn't happen," he said, low, on every speaker. "And your father finds out why."

A fork dropped somewhere with a clatter.

The silver-gowned woman put a hand to her mouth.

"That wasn't in the video," someone whispered.

"That's the whole fight."

"He cut her whole side."

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