Chapter 21: The Engagement Dinner

Two men came up the outside stairs in the dark.

Cal heard them before the door opened: heavy boots, no hurry.

"Kira," he whispered. "The file."

"Already sent."

She had the screen turned down against her chest, and he saw the thumb of her other hand finish the last tap.

She had copied the voice memo to her own phone while he read Gerald's texts.

She had sent it to the reporter in the green dress.

She had sent it to the district attorney's public line too.

It had taken her about as long as it took Lena to take off a ring.

The door flew open.

The first man was in a black jacket with a Ridgway Security patch peeled off the sleeve.

He took the phone out of Cal's hand with a twist of his wrist, and Cal let him.

Then the old boss's truck swung into the lot with its horn going.

The youngest mechanic stood on the running board with a tire iron.

The two men looked at each other, and ran.

Cal stood in the doorway with his empty hand open.

"They took the phone," Lena said, from the chair, in a thin voice.

"It's all right," said Kira. "They took a phone."

The dinner was the next night, at the Lakeview Hotel, in the same ballroom as the gala.

It was black tie.

Two hundred and twelve guests sat at round tables under chandeliers, and a banner over the stage read *Preston & Lena: A Celebration*.

Gerald Ridgway had insisted on holding it.

"A Ridgway doesn't cancel," he had told the papers. "The family is stronger than a rumor."

Cal came in through the front doors in a rented tuxedo, with Kira on his arm in a navy dress and her cane in her free hand.

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