Chapter 18: The Signing

At noon on Friday, four hundred people stood in the atrium of Arceneaux Tower and looked at a screen.

It was thirty feet high, and it showed a gold ribbon and the words *Tourneur Freight and Arceneaux Meridian*.

There were cameras on risers and a livestream counter in the corner of the wall.

The number had passed two million at eleven forty.

Kelsey's post had done that.

I stood at the front in the green dress Muriel had picked, with Jonas's hand at the small of my back.

Brett's father stood at a long table with a pen in his hand.

Brett stood beside him, gray and swaying, and he did not look at me.

Kelsey sat in the second row in a white dress, with a tablet on her knee.

She had no cast and no bandage, and she was not limping.

She had decided she did not need the ankle anymore.

She looked at me and smiled with her whole face.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Brett's father. "Thank you for joining us for a historic day."

He signed.

Jonas signed.

Cameras flashed, and the crowd applauded.

Then the screen went black.

A murmur ran through the atrium.

A man in a headset at the control desk looked up, startled, and began pressing buttons.

"Sir, I don't have the feed," he called.

"It's not us," Jonas said quietly. "She found a way in."

Sound came through the speakers, an engine, and the soft tick of an indicator.

Then Brett's voice, drunk and high with panic.

*Kels, I hit something.*

Everyone in the atrium turned and looked at Brett.

*It was a deer,* a woman's voice said, small and sweet.

The picture showed the dashboard and the black glass of a windshield.

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