Did they hire her to be another private-duty nurse for Vivian? Or is it because Taylor was the last person Vivian spoke to before she lost consciousness? What was it she’d said, again? Something about not clinking champagne glasses?
A knock at the door startles Taylor, and the glass slips from her hand, shattering on the floor.
“Taylor!”
It’s Sam. Taylor sidesteps the shards to open the door. “Careful,” she says, pointing at the ground.
“Whoa,” he says. He looks awful: His black button-down shirt is wrinkled, a light stubble covers his lower face, and his hair is uncharacteristically mussed. Sam’s a hairstylist; his hair never looks out of place.
“Where are you coming from?”
He leans against the door, briefly closing his eyes. “I was at the casino. I’m so glad I caught you. Are you on your way to the Knox?”
“On my wayto? No—I already worked there today. Do you know what time it is?”
He shakes his head. “My phone died.”
“It’s five o’clock. In the evening. Tuesday evening.”
He rubs his eyes. “My phone died,” he repeats. “I wanted to call you because I found some stuff…” His voice trails off, and Taylor realizes that all is not right with him.
Join the club, she thinks.
“Sam, are you okay?”
“No. Yeah. I mean, I’m okay. Tired as fuck obviously…. You know that guy I met on Raya?”
She frowns. “Miami Guy? The one who was over just last night?”
Sam rubs his face. “Was that only last night? It feels like a week ago. Yeah. Yeah, so he knows a few people in Boston. We were hanging out here—as you know—and then one ofhisfriends invited us out to this gay bar in the South End. So we went, and then we kept partying, back at his place. One of those nights, you know,” he says sheepishly. “And then I don’t know what time it was—like maybe four or five in the morning? This morning, I guess? Well, then, Oliver”—he looks at Taylor intently—“as in Oliver from the Knox, showed up at the guy’s apartment.”
Taylor grimaces. “How do you know who Oliver is?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. We were all hanging out; he had a bunch of friends with him. We were drinking, and some of the guys, including Oliver, were all high on something. Then he invited our group to go to Encore. So he takes out his phone and calls this person. He says, ‘Rose, I need a van for ten people right now to go to Encore.’ And I’m thinking,Who is Rose, and who is this guy—that he could just make a call and poof, like ten minutes later, there’s a fucking party van waiting for us outside to take us to the casino?And then we get there, and he’s greeted like a celebrity, even though it’s like maybe eight o’clock in the morning. People are saying, ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ andhe’s at the high-roller tables, and then someone makes a dumb knock-knock joke to him…. Then it hits me. Holy shit. This guy must be from the Knox. Like, one of them.”
“Whoa,” Taylor says. “That’s a crazy coincidence.” She wants to tell Sam that Oliver is more than just “one” of them, he’s about to be in charge, but she’s not sure now is the right time, given his state of mind—andhers.She is only halfway in this conversation. The dark circles beneath his eyes are like small caves; he looks howshefeels. She puts her hand on his arm. It’s cold. Or perhaps it’sherhand that is ice. She’s all out of sorts. “You should take some Tylenol and eat some greasy food.”
He grins. “I knew you were still a nurse, underneath all this.”
She gives a thin smile. “I don’t know what I am anymore.” A wave of exhaustion rolls over her. She wants to just collapse, lie down on the shards of glass. She might welcome the pain, the chance for her mind and body to be occupied with something other than her current situation.
“Hey, is there some sort of big Knox event coming up?”
“Yeah…the initiation. Why? And how do you know that?”
“Well, listen to this.” He grasps Taylor’s shoulders, surprising her. “I’ve got some unbelievable gossip.” His breath comes at her like the last call at a bar, and she recoils slightly. “Oliver has a gambling problem.”
“That’s not surprising.”
“No, but like a serious one. Like he was indeepbefore his father died. One of his buddies told me, after he’d had too many. He said it was a good thing the old man passed.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, this place is weird, Taylor. We may need to get you another job. Are you there for the initiation? Like, do they have you working it?”
“No.”
“Okay, good.” He relaxes his grip. “Because Oliver said something about it. He was pretty fucked-up by that point. He said something about three nights leading up to the grand finale, and then…” Sam laughs. “Then he said that there’s some sort of sacrifice that will be made.”
