Chapter 12: The Video

"Good morning, Roz," Tallis said.

She held the phone steady.

I stood in the doorway in Jack's shirt, with my hair wild and the marks of a night on my throat.

"You're in the wrong hall," I said.

"No," she said. "I think I'm in the right one."

Behind me, I heard the bed creak.

Jack was getting up.

I put my arm across the doorway, and I did not move.

"Stay there," I told him, without turning.

"Roz."

"Stay."

Tallis lowered the phone.

She walked past me into my suite and dropped her coat on the chair.

She turned in a slow circle, taking in the sheets, the rain-stained wrap dress on the floor, the two bodies' worth of mess.

Jack stood by the bed in his jeans, with his shirt in his hand and his jaw hard.

"Good morning, Jack," she said brightly. "You're up early."

"Get out," he said.

"Oh, I don't think so."

She sat on the arm of the sofa and crossed her legs.

"I've got four minutes of footage of you leaving this room at six a.m. looking very rested. And eleven more of you two coming in last night."

I felt the floor tilt.

"You followed us."

"I followed you for a week."

She smiled at me with all her small white teeth.

"I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I thought maybe a lawyer, maybe a lover. I didn't expect it to be the help."

"He is not the help," I said.

"He's a stagehand, Roz."

"He is not the help."

She shrugged.

"Whatever you call him. Brendan is going to be very upset."

"Is he?" I said. "Will you be there when he finds out?"

Tallis picked a thread off her skirt.

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