Chapter 10: Not a Market

Jo's POV

I couldn't sleep, so I came in on Saturday at half past six to run the household numbers on a quiet floor.

I saw Cynthia Pemberton through the lobby glass before I saw anything else.

She stood by the plants with a paper cup in each hand and her phone tucked under her arm, pointed outward.

Nate stood across from her with his coat over his arm.

I stopped behind the glass door of the stairwell and did not go through it.

I could hear every word.

"Twenty thousand dollars," Cynthia was saying. "For a bet you put in on a whim."

"It wasn't a whim."

"Mr. Coughlin, I only want you out before you lose money. I'm the host. I look after my players."

"Then answer one question for me," Nate said.

"Anything."

"Where is the pot?"

Her smile didn't change.

"It's held safely."

"By whom?"

"By a friend. It's all very legal."

"The entry is fifty dollars a head, paid to you," he said.

"At last count, two thousand and some people had entered. That's about a hundred thousand dollars, and you've already kept it."

"That's the host's fee."

"That's a business." He said it without heat.

"It sells the humiliation of a woman who works for me, and it pays someone with a long lens to stand on my sidewalk."

"I haven't paid anyone."

"Somebody stood outside my building at eight at night on Thursday. Whoever it was, you posted the photo."

For a second, Cynthia's eyes went to the camera on her phone.

I saw her think about it, and then I saw her decide.

She turned the phone toward him and her smile came back brighter.

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