Chapter 14: The Valentine Gala

The Stroud Capital Valentine's gala was held every year in the ballroom of a hotel on Fifth Avenue.

For six years my name had been on the guest list, and for six years Holden had told me I'd be bored.

I was thirty-three weeks pregnant, in a green dress Libby had let out at the sides with a seam ripper and a vicious temper.

Otis wore a black suit he said he hadn't put on since the day he left the firm.

He stood at the foot of the hotel steps and looked up at the lit doors.

"You don't have to do this tonight," he said.

"The board meets on the twentieth. After that, I'm just a woman in a green dress making a scene."

"You're a woman in a green dress who's about to make a scene."

"Then give me your arm."

He gave it, and he handed me a small black box.

It held a thumb drive with a label in his square handwriting.

SEVEN THURSDAYS.

"I pulled all of them off the camera archive the night you left," he said. "Every word. It was the only thing I could think of to do."

I closed my hand around it.

It wasn't an apology, and it was better than the ones I'd been refused.

The woman at the check-in desk was Daphne.

She wore a long red gown and a headset and a smile that went flat when she saw me.

"Greta." She stepped around the desk. "This is a private event. You aren't on the list."

"Look under Hensley."

She looked.

I watched her find the line, in her own typing: Table 1, A. Hensley, 2 seats, no response.

"That's your grandfather's name," she said.

"It's mine. Two seats, Daphne. You can stop calling it a private event."

We went in past her.

Table one was at the foot of the stage, with a white card standing in front of an empty chair.

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