Chapter 11: Knife and Anchor

Knife and Anchor sat on the bay in Longport.

It was a steakhouse with leaded windows and white tablecloths.

A wall of framed photographs showed men holding up fish.

Braden had booked the back room for his engagement dinner.

The Tully family had been told the table was private.

It was not private for long.

Silvio came through the front door first, in the grey suit.

Two of his men came behind him.

The hostess took one look at them and stepped out of the way.

I came in after him in a black dress I had built myself.

It had a sweetheart neckline and a waist cut to sit exactly where I wanted it.

Nobody stopped me.

The back room was loud with clinking glasses.

A man was telling a golf story.

The whole table went quiet when the hostess pulled the curtain aside.

Braden sat at the head of the table in a navy jacket.

His tie was the color of old pennies.

The bride sat beside him.

She was twenty-six years old, with honey-blonde hair in a low bun.

A diamond the size of a grape sat on her left hand.

Her father sat across from her in a quarter-zip.

He was the kind of man who had never once been told no by a waiter.

Joyce sat at the far end.

When she saw me, the color drained out of her face.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Braden said.

"Good evening," I said. "I'm sorry to interrupt the engagement."

"You're not interrupting anything, babe. Get out."

"I'll go when your fiancée has seen the marker."

The bride turned in her chair. "What marker?"

Braden's face flushed dark.

"Nothing. It's a business thing. Don't listen to her."

"It's a two-hundred-and-twelve-thousand-dollar business thing," Silvio said.