Henry snorted.
“Already ten steps ahead of you.”
He crossed to the wardrobe built into the far wall and opened a panel I hadn’t bothered with yet today. Inside: a neat row of garment bags, plastic still crinkling around them.
He pulled one down and unzipped it.
A black tuxedo, clean and sharp, but not mine.
Not tailored.
“You’ll hate the fit,” he said, holding it up, “which is why I picked it. Off-the-rack groundskeeper trying to pass for a contestant. The narrative sells itself.”
“I have suits downstairs that cost more than most of the surveillance equipment in this room put together,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said. “And if you walked into that dining room in one of them, they’d smell money before you sat down. You’re supposed to be Jacob tonight. Jacob wouldn’t own a Tom Ford. Jacob borrows an off the rack tux from wardrobe.”
He was right, which was irritating.
He crossed back, set the tux on the back of my chair, and then opened a narrow drawer near the console. He took out a black mask — smooth, simple, an elegant Mardi Gras-style cut that covered only the area around the eyes and the bridge of the nose.
It was identical to the others.
“Number Seven,” Henry said, handing it to me.
I turned it over in my hands. The thing felt light. Harmless. A prop.
The monitors said otherwise.
“Mask doesn’t cover the scar,” I said.
“It’s not supposed to,” he replied. “They need to know you’re Jacob. They need to see you as a risk, not a reward. The rules forbid fraternizing with the help. You are the embodiment of that line getting blurred. That’s the tension.”
“And if they start thinking the help might actually be Mr. Stonewood?” I asked.
He gave me a cool look.
“Then you’ve slipped,” he said. “And you’re not going to slip, are you?”
I didn’t answer that with words.
I took the mask instead.
Henry checked his watch.
“Twenty minutes until we start moving pieces,” he said. “Go change. I’ll brief the actors.”
“Warn them not to improvise,” I said. “Tonight is for tone-setting, not unnecessary theatrics.”
“You say that like they aren’t all failed theater kids and soap extras,” he muttered. “But I’ll do my best.”
He headed for the door, then paused with his hand on the knob.
“Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you do at that table,” he said, “don’t make her feel trapped. Let her feel chosen. There’s a difference.”
