“I do,” she confirmed, “so you understand why I have to ask again why you’re bringingmeas your guest. Is this aMost Dangerous Gamesituation? Are you and your friends going to hunt me for sport?”
“These people aren’t my friends. And trust me, I’m not doing you a favor. This is a punishment, Morgan, not a gift.”
His jaw was clenched tight, and his fingers were tense on the steering wheel. He really believed that. Ellory had even more questions, but she swallowed them down for now. Hudson was probably trying to psych her out. Everyone knew that even juniors with exemplary grades found it nearly impossible to get into Professor Colt’s classes. His waiting list was extensive, and his connections were legendary. No matter what Hudson Graves said, thiswasa huge opportunity. He had the privilege of deciding whether he liked these salons. Ellory didn’t care if theydidhunt her for sport as long as she got a recommendation from Professor Colt at the end of it.
It was a twenty-minute drive to the house. Professor Colt lived in the kind of neighborhood that was more trees than people, where the residences had acreage and driveways that curved away from the main road to hide them from view. But when Hudson turned up the drive for this one, Ellory didn’t see a house—she saw a mansion. The three-floor cottage had a slate roof, white stone at the top and red brick at the bottom, and two different chimneys, as well as a sunroom attached to one side and a garage attached to the other. There was a stone deck littered with chairs, a firepit, a grill, and glass-top tables. There was a sprawling view of what looked like a golf course across the way. There was a backyard so wide that Ellory couldn’t guess at where it ended and the neighboring property began.
Hudson slotted the Barracuda behind a BMW and an SUV, both diagonally parked in front of the closed garage doors. If he noticed Ellory’s awe, or even found it amusing, it didn’t show. Instead, he swept toward the front door, leaving her stumbling to catch up with him. There was a skull plastered at eye level, spitting a black door knocker out of its open mouth. It was for the holiday; she knew it was for the holiday, knew she should find it fun and quirky. Instead, her heart pounded a little faster as Hudson rang the doorbell.
The skull watched them both, unfathomable.
When the door swung open, Ellory froze like a rabbit within view of a wolf. Perhaps she’d stared at the door knocker for too long, but for a moment, all she saw was death: A bleached face with sunken cheeks and gaping eye sockets. Teeth bared at her in a predatory warning.
“You’re late,” said Preston Colt. “But now I can understand why. Who is this lovely young woman?”
His voice was a soothing balm to Ellory’s anxiety. It was no skeletal corpse that stood before her, but a handsome white man in his early to midsixties, his graying dishwater-blond hair combed back from his broad forehead and almost-nonexistent eyebrows. His smile was kind, not sinister, and his sunken blue eyes were framed by crow’s feet that implied a lifetime of laughter. He wore all black—black suit jacket, black collared shirt, black slacks, black oxfords—which only drew attention to those few spots of color: The salt-and-pepper beard that lined his jaw. The silver glint of a Rolex. The lavender square curving from his left breast pocket.
“—Morgan,” Hudson was saying when her ears stopped ringing. “We’re in con. law together, and she’s a great admirer of yours.”
“She also speaks for herself,” Ellory managed. She reached out a hand.Firm handshake. Maintain eye contact. Smile, but not toomuch.“It’s such an honor to meet you, Professor. Thank you for having me.”
They shook. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Morgan.Coltis fine during these little salons. Come in, come in. May I take your coats?”
The inside of the house was as lavish as the outside. They stepped through an arched doorway into a tasteful land of hardwood floors with neutral throw rugs, leaded windows that gazed out onto a beautiful verdant lawn, carved wainscoting, and a mahogany grand stairwell that twisted out of view. Colt led them to a carpeted first-floor study that had a lit fireplace and inlaid bookshelves housing fancy editions of books without visible titles. More windows lined the right wall, but in here the curtains were drawn, lending it a more intimate feel. Cushioned armchairs and a silver couch surrounded a glass table laden with hors d’oeuvres, including a charcuterie board.
Another thing that Ellory had thought was made up before she’d come to Warren.
There were already seven people present, four men and three women. Aside from one of the women, everyone was white, which meant that she and Hudson single-handedly brought the nonwhite population of the room up to a third. Their faces brightened at the sight of Hudson and then pinched at the sight of her, as if they were unused to new people and wondered if she might be a threat. Ellory straightened her shoulders and met their confused gazes head-on. The only person who didn’t immediately look away was the brown woman, but she also didn’t return Ellory’s answering smile.
“Tough crowd,” she whispered to Hudson.
“Oh, you just wait,” he whispered back.
He carted her around the room, opening and then facilitating conversation until she was stitched into the tapestry of the salon. Ellory expected to feel like a showpiece, the starving artist toHudson’s smug patron, but he was so different here. If he had been performing in the car, he was putting on an Oscar-winning routine for these people. He asked about parents and cousins, weddings and stock market prices. He used words likesummeringandauthenticated, referenced artists like Modigliani and Flinck. He laughed at jokes that weren’t funny and smiled like he’d never known what it was to do anything else. She tried to keep track of names, but several times she found herself simply gaping at his transformation. This was code-switching on such a grand scale that she felt out of her depth, unsure which parts of him were genuine.
Eventually, Hudson abandoned her to have a whispered conversation with Colt while the scent of butter rolls wafted in from the kitchen.
“The food at these things is always legendary,” said a model-tall blond woman with severe bangs whose name was possibly Greer. “I heard that his chef is poached from a restaurant withtwoMichelin stars.”
Ellory, who had no idea what that was supposed to mean, nodded sagely. “Are you in his political theory class?”
“I took it last semester. Worst few months of my fuckinglife.” Greer wrinkled her nose. “He doesn’t even teach the same curriculum twice, so I paid for a set of useless notes from some guy who took it in the fall. Asshole.”
Ellory, unsure if she was talking about the guy or Colt, nodded again.
“I’m surprised I’ve never seen you before,” Greer continued. “I always go to those rallies and everything. Is that not the best way to support anymore?”
“Support what?”
“Black Lives Matter.” She turned her clutch to reveal that therewas a pin advertising the movement affixed to the front of it. “I’ve been seeing fewer people there. Are we staying home and just donating again? Because I have dates and stuff.”
“I, uh.” Ellory blinked. “I’ve never gone to a Black Lives Matter rally.”
“I fucking knew it. A waste of time, right? Like—”
Ellory excused herself before she had to hear the end of that sentence, her eyebrows nearly one with her hair. But the rest of the conversations only gave her further whiplash. For every person who showed an interest in her life in Astoria, where she’d sourced her outfit, or what classes she was taking, there was another who dismissed her outright for being a freshman, or expressed shock that she’d never been on a yacht, or led her over by the fireplace to ask, unironically, if she had any international weed connections because they wanted thatstrong Bob Marley shit. By the time Colt reappeared to call everyone to dinner, Ellory was genuinely considering opening the window and making a run for it.
“You do thiseverymonth?” she asked when Hudson reappeared at her side.“Why?”
