Chapter 19: The Podium

The ballroom held three hundred people and one hundred round tables, and mine was the farthest from the stage.

Table Nine stood beside the kitchen doors, under a vent.

Maeve had made it the most beautiful table in the room.

Forty camellia branches ran down the middle in white and pink.

People had started drifting over to ask who the florist was.

"Tell them it's a family business," Maeve said, and took a bite of bread.

Briggs sat on my right in a dark suit, with his hand over mine under the tablecloth.

Neil sat across from us with his folder on his knee.

Carina was at Table One in a blue dress, beside Alister's empty chair.

Alister himself was talking to a donor near the stage.

He saw me come in. He didn't look away fast enough.

Over the soup, I mapped the exits.

The kitchen doors were six feet from my chair.

The ballroom's rear doors opened on a loading bay.

Neil had told me an ambulance had been parked there since six.

At eight-fifteen, the chairwoman of the foundation tapped the microphone.

"Friends," she said, "the Maddox Award goes each year to a person who has put others first."

She turned to the stage.

"This year's presentation will be made by Mr. Alister Hatherton."

The room applauded.

Alister stepped onto the stage. He looked polished and sorry and calm, and a few women at the front table touched their hearts.

"Thank you," he said. "Before I begin, I want to say how much this means to my family."

His eyes found me across the room. They stayed on me one second too long.