Chapter 8: The Other Square

I slept four hours and woke up angry in a new way.

Ephraim was in my kitchen at nine on Sunday morning, standing at the stove in his undershirt, cracking eggs into a pan.

He had brought the eggs.

He had also brought coffee, a bag of oranges, and a loaf of bread that cost more than my dinner on Thursday.

I stood in the doorway with my phone in my fist.

"Which one did you pay?" I said.

He didn't turn around.

"Sit down, Hallie."

"Don't tell me to sit."

He turned off the burner.

Then he faced me, and I saw he hadn't slept at all.

"There was another man at the bar," he said.

My knees weakened and I did sit.

"The real one," I said. "The one in the red pocket square."

"Yes."

"The one who was supposed to be there."

"Yes."

"Then who are you?"

"I'm the man you asked to hire," he said. "I'm also the man who got there second."

I stared at him.

He pulled out the other kitchen chair and sat across from me, elbows on his knees.

"A friend of mine works security at the Aldine."

"Thursday afternoon he mentioned a booking from an escort agency. The note named a Hallie Brennock, eight o'clock, the bar."

"A friend told you my name."

"A friend told me your name and the hotel."

He met my eyes.

"I couldn't let a stranger sit at your table who'd been paid by somebody else to be there."

"Paid by who?"

"The invoice went to a firm on Federal Street."

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