I relieved my bladder as quickly as I could, washed my hands, and opened my purse to reapply my lipstick, pausing at the sight of Patricia Mickler’s note crumpled in the bottom of my handbag. I should flush it right now. I should shred it and wash it down the sink.
The lock on the stall behind me snapped open and I quickly shut my purse.
Harris Mickler’s date bent over her smartphone, her long blond hair hanging like a curtain around her face, over the shoulders of her dove-gray suit. I smeared on a fresh coat of lipstick, watching her in the mirror as she dialed and pressed the phone to her ear. A stunning diamond ring glittered on the fourth finger of her left hand, flanked by a diamond-encrusted wedding band.
“Hey, babe,” the woman cooed into her phone as I tucked my lipstick back into my purse.
Maybe she was one of Harris’s colleagues from work, I told myself. Maybe they’d just closed a huge deal and had come to celebrate.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I have a client meeting. It’srunning later than I thought. There are leftovers in the fridge, and Katie’s allergy medicine is on the counter. Do you mind putting the kids to bed for me?”
Okay, so Harris was definitely cheating. With a married woman.
Big deal. He may have deserved a raging case of gonorrhea, and if he was beating his wife he definitely deserved to be in jail, but nothing I’d seen so far suggested Harris Mickler deserved to die. I adjusted my wig-scarf in the mirror and checked the time on my phone. It was early. I could still charge a few cartons of Chinese takeout to Steven’s account, bring dinner home for Georgia, and forget this ever—
Harris Mickler’s date leaned against the counter and raised her voice. “It’s an important client, Marty! What do you want me to do?”
I slipped out of the bathroom and the door drifted closed, muting their heated argument. I hurried down the corridor back into the bar just as Harris Mickler’s waiter set two bubbling champagne flutes before him. I caught the flash of Harris’s crisp white shirtsleeve as he tucked a folded bill into the waiter’s hand. When the waiter turned, something slid from Harris’s palm into one of the glasses. The white pill glowed against the golden bubbles, fizzing as it wafted to the bottom of the flute.
Head down, I walked fast past Harris’s booth and slipped into an empty space at the bar. The angle was too sharp to see Harris Mickler’s face, but near enough to see his arm as he swirled the glass. I hardly noticed the bartender step in front of me to take my order. I was out of cash anyway, and I craned my head to see over his shoulder as Harris switched the position of the champagne flutes.
The bartender leaned into my field of vision. Julian smiled when our eyes caught. I tried to catch discreet glimpses of the restroomdoor down the hall. The woman would be coming back any second. What should I do? Tell Julian? Ask him to swoop in on their table? Track down the woman in the bathroom and tell her what I had seen Harris do? Any of those would make me a witness. I’d have to wait around for the police to come and take a statement. They’d ask me who I was and what I was doing here. I’d have to explain why I was wearing a wig and a stolen dress and calling myself Theresa. I’d have to explain why I was the subject of a police manhunt, because I had failed to pick my children up from my sister’s house.
Georgia,I thought.
Georgia was a cop. If Georgia had been there, what would she do? Every scenario that came to mind involved a service weapon or handcuffs, or some knowledge of jujitsu. I had none of the above.
“Change of plans?” Julian asked with a curious tilt of his head.
“Maybe,” slipped out before I could take it back.
His grin widened a little. “Want a drink while you wait?”
This was the part of the story where the heroine had to think on her feet. What would the heroine of my story do? Definitely not call the police while she had a promissory note for a hit job hidden in her purse.
“Bloody Mary?” I asked.
He raised a brow at my beverage choice but didn’t argue. I watched the bathroom door while he poured tomato and vodka over ice and dropped a plume of celery in the glass.
“Thanks,” I said, plucking it from his hand before it hit the counter. “I’ll be right back.” I picked my way quickly back toward the dark hall to the restrooms and flung open the door, relieved to find Harris’s date leaning in front of the mirror, touching up her rouge.
I took a deep breath and prayed the woman didn’t have aconcealed carry permit. Then I pretended to stumble, flinging the contents of my glass and drenching the back of her suit in tomato juice.
Her spine went rigid as the icy liquid soaked through the pale gray skirt.
“Oh, oh no! I am so, so sorry!” I set my empty glass in the sink and snatched a wad of paper towels from the dispenser.
She swatted away my clumsy attempts to wipe the mess, twisting with a look of disgust to see the damage in the mirror. “It’s all over me!”
It could be a lot worse.
She swiped at her back, unable to reach the worst of the stain behind her. “Club soda,” I said, backing toward the door. “We needlotsof club soda. You stay here. Don’t move. I know exactly what to do.” I pried the door open just wide enough to sneak through.
Harris’s head snapped up as I exited the bathroom. His smile fell away when I stopped in front of his booth. My heart hammered. It was now or never.
“Harris? Harris Mickler? Is that you?”
He blanched, casting anxious glances at the tables around us. “Uh, no. I’m not—” His eyes flicked back to the bathroom door. “I’m sorry,” he said, his expression caught between confusion and annoyance. “Do I know you?”
