Chapter 16: The Front Desk

June's POV

I read his note three times, and then I put on my boots.

Stay here, he'd written.

Gwen was already in the hall, dressed, with her hair in its low knot and a hard look.

"He went at half past four," she said. "His driver told me. I'm coming."

"Why?"

"Because my father's men know my face, and they don't know yours."

We took a cab to the north side, with Gwen's hand clamped on her knee the whole way.

The clinic stood behind a brick wall and a bed of dead roses.

In the lobby a dozen families sat in plastic chairs, holding coffee and waiting for news.

A woman sat at the front desk in a pale blue cardigan, with a clinic badge on a lanyard.

She looked up, and the color went out of her face.

It was the friend whose shifts I had covered for three Christmases.

"June," she said.

"I need the visitor log for the fourth floor."

"I can't."

"Then I'll say it where everyone can hear."

I turned around and raised my voice.

"Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you all."

Twelve faces looked at me.

"This woman works the desk. Five days ago a man who owns this building paid her to stand up at my wedding and vote me out of it."

"I thought you should know who runs your clinic."

Nobody spoke.

A man in the front row slowly put down his coffee.

The friend at the desk started to cry, without any sound.

"He said it was a game," she whispered. "Roxanne said it was a game."

"Did you take the job?"

"I started Monday."

"Then you work for him."

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