I’m thinking about evidence. About the game we’re playing tonight. About the women before me who wore dresses Mariana pinned and didn’t make it out.
The Bellevue’s entrance is all marble and gold. Old Philadelphia money dripping from every surface. The kind of building that makes you feel small on purpose.
I don’t feel small.
I feel like prey walking into a lion’s den with a tape recorder in her clutch.
“Name?” A woman asks at the door. Clipboard. Headset. Professional smile.
“Dylan Wells.”
She scans the list. Marks something. “Go on through.”
A small piece of me had hoped my name wouldn’t be there. That this was all a mistake. That I could turn around and go home and pretend none of this was happening.
But my name is on the list.
Because Marcus put it there.
The doorman opens the door with a professional smile. I walk through like I belong.
Walk like you deserve the space you’re in.
Mom’s voice. My mantra. Tonight’s armor.
The lobby opens into a ballroom glittering with chandeliers and champagne and people who look like they were born knowing how to hold a wine glass. Politicians. Lawyers. Donors with checkbooks bigger than my annual salary.
And somewhere in this city, a serial killer is driving here to meet me.
I take a breath. Smooth my dress. Lift my chin.
Marcus wanted to arrive together. He’s not here yet.
That means I have time.
Maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. Enough to work the room before he finds me. Before I become his accessory instead of my own person.
I scan the crowd. Looking for allies. Looking for anyone who might know what he really is.
Time to hunt.
Fifteen
The Grand Ballroomsprawls before me—those famous Baccarat crystal chandeliers throwing light across white linens, contribution cards at every place setting announcing this as a Leadership PAC fundraiser. Five thousand per plate, judging by the Platinum Sponsor signs at the central tables.
About a hundred people. Mostly men in expensive suits.
I catalog them automatically—it’s what paralegals do. We organize. We index. We notice which faces appear in which configurations.
IBEW Local 98 guys by the windows—those distinctive yellow and blue pins, Johnny Doc’s crew even though he’s gone now. Building Trades Council near the central tables—quieter, calculating. Politicians threading between both groups, bridging gaps. Even a few Committee of Seventy members, the irony is not lost on me that Philadelphia’s government watchdog group drinks with the wolves.
And on the far wall, a portrait I almost miss. An older man in judicial robes. Weak chin. Sparse facial hair. Brass plaque beneath: Hon. Richard Ashford Sr., City Council 1962-1978.
Marcus’s grandfather. Watching over the room like a saint in a church.
Three generations. That’s what Marcus said in the car. Grandfather on City Council. Father Deputy Mayor under Rendell. And now Marcus, Controller of the city’s money, hosting fundraisers in rooms decorated with his family’s legacy.
The view through the floor-to-ceiling windows faces north toward City Hall, lit up like a birthday cake five blocks away. Where I’ll be working Monday. Where Marcus’s office waits.
