Chapter 6: The Brunch

By eleven on Sunday morning the clip had four million views.

Brice had said nothing about it while he drove.

He had said nothing while he bought me a green dress from a boutique that opened early for him, either.

At a red light, he put a tablet in my lap.

"My crew had four cameras on that terrace. Two had audio. I pulled the files at dawn."

"And?"

"And the clip has a line in your voice. It isn't on any of my files."

I looked at him.

"Somebody put it in," he said. "That's one problem for Marissa."

"What's the other one?"

"Wait until you see the wide shot."

The Wentworth Club held a brunch every Sunday in the glass room on the thirty-first floor.

Today it was a benefit for the hospital wing named for my father.

Marissa would be there. She had put her name on the committee herself.

We walked in through the service door, and nobody stopped Brice, because nobody ever stopped Brice.

A hundred and twenty people sat at round tables with white roses and mimosas.

At the head table, Marissa was in pale pink, with a handkerchief, speaking in a trembling voice to the hospital's three biggest donors.

"I don't blame her," she was saying. "I think grief makes people do terrible things. I'd just like her to get help."

A woman at her table patted her hand.

"Brynn!" someone said, loud enough to turn heads. "Oh my God."

Marissa looked up.

The color left her face, and then came back in a rush.

"Brynn, sweetheart, you shouldn't be here," she said, rising from her chair. "Not today. Please, let someone take you home."

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