Chapter 8: The Gala

I texted him a photo of the box.

How do you know where I live?

Your best friend. She made me promise three things first.

What things?

One of them was don't get her killed. I'm not telling you the other two.

I held the dress up against myself in the mirror.

It was the exact red of a channel marker.

Nobody would be able to look anywhere else.

That was the point.

Thursday at seven he picked me up in an old dark green Land Rover he'd clearly rebuilt with his own hands.

He got out to open my door.

Then he stopped on the sidewalk and just looked at me.

"Say something," I said.

"I'm trying." He cleared his throat. "My brother is going to have a stroke."

"That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

The Harbor Gala filled the old customs warehouse on the waterfront.

Brick walls. Iron beams. String lights. Five hundred people in black, and me in red.

Heads turned when we walked in.

Then they stayed turned.

"Smile," Rem murmured. "They can smell fear."

"I drive a boat through fog for a living. I'm not afraid of rich people."

"You should be. They bite."

He got two glasses of champagne off a tray and gave me one.

Across the room, an old man in a black tux watched us over the crowd.

Tall. White-haired. The same heavy brows as both his sons.

Old Mr. Beckford.

I'd met him once, at my parents' funeral, when I was twelve and wouldn't let go of my grandfather's hand.

He didn't know me now.

Nobody in this room did.

Beside him stood a woman in silver sequins with a blond helmet of hair. Lance's mother. The new Mrs. Beckford.

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