Chapter 5: Greywater

Greywater had a hundred and forty guests, a pool lit bright blue, and a string quartet playing pop songs on the lawn.

Averett had been polite to eighty of them.

He stood at the edge of the terrace with a club soda in his hand and the same actress from Delmonico's on his arm.

He smiled for a photographer who had no business being past the gate.

"You're good at this," the actress murmured.

"I've had practice," Averett said.

"Does it get easier?" she asked.

"No."

She patted his arm and drifted toward the bar.

Across the terrace, by the French doors, Jarek stood in a black suit with his hands clasped in front of him.

He had not looked at Averett in two days.

Averett had not looked at him either, and it was exhausting.

A man in a pink linen jacket came up out of the crowd with a drink in each hand.

He was perhaps thirty, flushed, laughing, and he had been introduced earlier as a cousin of someone's cousin.

"The prince himself!" he said. "Come on, Averett, come say hi to my girlfriend, she's dying to meet you."

"Later," Averett said. "Thank you."

"Come on."

He took Averett's elbow.

It was friendly, at first.

Then the grip tightened, and the man steered him sideways, off the terrace, down two steps toward the empty cabana by the pool.

"I said later."

"Just one photo. One. You owe the people, don't you?"

He pulled, and Averett's foot caught on the edge of a lounger.

He went down.

The man dropped over him, one knee on the cushion, laughing, a hand on his collar, a phone held high.

"Smile for the camera, Your..."

He did not get to finish.

Averett heard the sound before he saw the cause, a heavy dull crack, and then the weight was gone off him.