Chapter 14: Black Suits

The Depot ballroom had a brass chandelier the size of a truck, and I could hear it hum in the cold.

Cal's rented suit was too short in the sleeves.

He kept tugging the cuffs and then catching himself doing it.

"You look fine," I said.

"I look like a man who was hired."

"You were hired. You took the job seriously."

He laughed, a short breath through his nose, and I felt him relax on my arm.

I had Hoyt's signet ring in my left pocket and my phone in my right.

The recording from the lodge was on it, Cecelia's confession first and Hoyt's voice after.

A man in a black suit and a white shirt met us inside the doors with a tray of champagne.

"Ma'am," he said.

His voice was quiet and a little hoarse, and I stopped walking.

"Hand three," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

He had held out the ring in his shaking palm at the boat shop, and he was holding a tray now with steady fingers.

"The agency got a rush booking from the company," he said under his breath. "Wait staff for the anniversary. Six of us."

"Six," I said.

"Same six. Somebody in his office thought it was funny."

Behind him, in the line of waiters along the wall, I heard five sets of shoes shift on the marble.

One by one the men came past me with trays, and each of them did something small.

The first set a glass in my hand and touched the back of it once with his thumb.

Once, not twice.

The second did it, and the third, and the fourth.

The fifth was the one with the cough I knew from the lawn, the one who had been hand one.

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