Chapter 7: The Smear

"It came off your coat," Cullen said.

He didn't sit up.

He lay with one arm behind his head, watching me hold the button in the gray light.

"I was at the fair that day," he said. "Our families went together every June. I was nine."

"You kept it for nineteen years?"

"I found it in the grass by the carousel, after they called off the first search. I put it in my pocket."

His voice was careful.

I looked at the frayed thread, and a strange cold finger touched the back of my neck.

Then I put the button back on its cloth and shut the drawer.

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

"There's more to the day," he said. "I'll tell you all of it. Not at dawn, not like this."

"When?"

"Soon."

I studied his face.

He looked like a man who was telling the truth and bracing for a blow.

I decided it was grief, and I let him pull me back into the bed.

Alister called at seven.

I answered on speaker, still half in the sheet.

"Check your phone," he said. "Ketterman is on the news."

I opened the link.

It was a gossip site, a glossy photo of Dean in a gray suit looking brave.

The headline read, "Boston Banker's Heartbreak: Stalked by Diner Girl Turned Heiress Hoax."

Underneath, a quote from "a close source" said I had stolen from Dean's accounts for years and was now using the Ardmore name to cover it.

There was a photo of me in my apron, scowling.

It had been taken from the roof party.

Someone had cropped out the envelope.

"He sold it before breakfast," Alister said. "My lawyers can take it down by noon."

"No," I said.

"No?"

"I don't want it down."

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