I've Died Here Before novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: The Benefit
The Harbor Benefit filled the Hotel Courtland ballroom with three hundred people in black tie and one girl in a borrowed green dress.
Hattie walked in beside me with her cast in a sling and her hair pinned up.
"I look like a sad bridesmaid," she said.
"You look like the only person here who can't be bought."
"Everyone can be bought. I just cost more than a canapé."
The envelope sat in a drawer at Hattie's apartment, unopened, with a chair pushed against the door.
I had given Holden his week, and I'd hated every day of it.
The police had spoken to Dean twice.
They had a video, a pavement and a hospital bill, and no plates on a gray van.
"Smile," the voice said. "Your enemy's on the stage."
Giselle stood under a crystal chandelier in a gold gown, with a champagne glass in one hand and a microphone in the other.
She looked like a woman who had never been refused anything.
"Friends," she said. "Thank you for coming to help the Courtland Foundation rebuild the waterfront. Every dollar tonight goes to the new pier."
The new pier.
My stomach turned over.
"And because you've all been so generous," Giselle went on, "the Vickers family would like to invite everyone to a private after-party this evening on the Marguerite, our yacht on the Hudson."
The room applauded.
At the head table, Holden sat in a black tuxedo with his hands flat on the cloth.
He looked tired enough to fall over.
He'd looked up when I came in, and he hadn't looked at me since.
Dean stood against the far wall in a dinner jacket, with a drink he wasn't drinking.
"A boat," Hattie said. "On the river. At night."
"Don't," I said.
"I'm just saying it's a boat, on a river, at night."
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