Closing my eyes, I exhale, still reeling from today’s discovery.
On some level, I knew there was rot inside my walls.A bug, maybe.A single bad actor.But an entire enterprise?I shake my head.The cleaning crew must have seen something.Or maybe Eddie had help—from every department, every floor.
“Well, shit.Did someone die?”
I look up at Brennan in his robe, tie loosened, the picture of judicial fatigue.
“No.But I need to drink.”
He checks his watch.“I have twenty minutes.Tops.”He closes the blinds and retrieves two crystal glasses and a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet.
“That’s fine,” I say, though he pours anyway—one full glass for me, a symbolic taste for himself—and props against the desk.
“What’s up?No death, no injury… Betrayal, then?”
I think of Eddie.Didn’t know him well but drank with him once or twice.Never thought he’d fuck me over.“Something like that.”I stare into the amber liquid.“Ever trust someone completely?Build something on that trust, only to find out they’ve been bleeding you the entire time?”
Brennan leans back.“Is this about your Monaco obsession?Or the meeting Margot insisted you take?”
“Both, maybe.That meeting Margot insisted I take, with Alicia Morgan?It’s confirmed.An employee’s stabbing me in the back.Selling member data.”Data is the polite word.The real one is leverage.
“Ah.Hence the crisis communications firm called in–the, ah, data as you call it–leaked?”
“Not yet.”I admit, swirling my drink.“Extortion.”
“Oof.And the woman?Monaco?”I told Tommy she’d surfaced–a decision I might come to regret.
“No progress.”Lie by omission.Progress exists… just not the kind I’m confessing yet.
“Well,” he says, raising his glass, “at least you can fire one of your problems.”
“Hmm.And I will.”
He studies me as he takes a slow sip.Brennan always did see too clearly.“Not much rattles you.What is it with this long-lost lover?”
Not lost anymore.I finally know where she lives—or soon will.
“Margot and I both agree she threw you for a loop with that vanishing game.”
“She left.Didn’t leave a way to reach her.There’s no game in that.”
“True.More than one girl in college did that to me.Or if I had her number, she didn’t answer.”
“It’s called ghosting.”
He smirks.Brennan knows perfectly well, but this is his way of easing the blow.“Why were you talking to Margot?”
“She said you hadn’t answered her calls.She’s worried.”
“Duly noted.”
He sniffs his bourbon.“Want to meet up later?You pick the place.”
“No.If things go well, I’ll already have dinner plans.”
“Monaco?”
“If you want to call her that.”I drain my glass.“Yes.”
