Chapter 28: Jocelyn's Last Card

"Say it," I said.

The courtroom doors swung shut behind me on the last of the green jackets.

Jocelyn stood very straight in the corridor, in the gray coat, with her hands deep in the pockets.

"The morning show wants me," she said. "The same one that ran Vivian."

"And?"

"They'll pay eighty thousand dollars and put me on the Tower steps at noon tomorrow."

"Then take it."

"I will. I'll tell them I was Darrell's victim."

She lifted her chin.

"That I was twenty-six and he was my boss. That you assaulted a girl at brunch over a ring."

Nadine made a noise like a kettle.

Winslow did not make any noise.

"Or," Jocelyn said, "you could pay me two hundred thousand, and I tell them you were gracious."

It was a clean offer, plainly made.

I thought of the girl in the classroom with her mascara running.

I thought of the woman in the lobby with her suitcase.

She had learned nothing, and she had come to sell me the lesson.

"No," I said.

"Rhiannon."

"No. You'll do what you'll do." I turned to go, and then I turned back. "I'll be there."

Her face flickered.

"Why?"

"Because it's my steps."

The next morning at eleven the Tower's front steps were set up.

There was a camera on a tripod and two lights on stands.

A reporter with a television face stood beside a producer in a black puffer coat, who kept touching Jocelyn's elbow.

Jocelyn had a new blazer.

She had a lipstick too bright for the weather, and a script she held against her ribs.

"We'll start with the heartbreak," the reporter said. "Then the ring. Then the betrayal. Can you cry on cue?"

"Of course," Jocelyn said, and her voice did it before her face did.

I stood in the lobby behind the glass doors, with Winslow a step off my shoulder, and I did not go out.

Nadine had spent the morning going from the kitchen to the desk with a tray of coffee.

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