The rain was audible over the room’s ambient noise now. Lightning flashed, occasionally throwing the courtyard into sharp relief. The quartet continued to play.
Thiago spoke quietly. “Two seconds.”
“What?”
“Between when you started moving and when I did. You were faster.”
I looked at him. He was watching the room with a neutral expression.
“I’ll work on pacing myself,” I said.
He almost smiled.
Dominic found me twenty minutes later. “You’re going to tell me something.”
I was ahead of him. “Henri sought me out.”
He lifted his wineglass and turned it slowly while I gave him the same account I’d given Thiago—the same words with the same emphasis.
“Henri said it to you,” he noted. “Not to me.”
“Perhaps I was the safer destination.”
“He’s not speaking to me yet. He talks adjacent to me, letting the words arrive by alternative routes.” Dominic exhaled. “Henri always preferred counterpoint to direct statements. Two lines moving simultaneously. The meaning lives in the interval between them.”
He wasn’t discussing musical composition. Not entirely.
“You need to tell Thiago what you know about 2006,” I said. “Not the published version.”
He was quiet for a moment. “And if it reflects poorly?”
“Then it does. Thiago is discreet.”
Dominic glanced around the room and then spoke, barely above a whisper. “You know most of this, but I was not the first person in Jackson Square that night. I found something already assembled. Someone had made calls I didn’t make, reaching musicians outside of my network, and understood what the moment needed before it existed.” He paused. “Henri. I stepped into something he built, and the cameras found me. I’ve known this for twenty years. I haven’t said it publicly or to him.”
He straightened his cuffs. “I’ll tell Thiago in the morning. Now, I’d like to finish my wine.”
He moved back toward the musicians near the entrance. I watched him go.
I scanned the room and found Henri at the far end of the hall. He was watching Dominic. He turned slightly, and for one beat, his gaze landed on me. Then he moved on.
Thiago joined me. “The three of us need to talk tonight,” I said.
“Dominic told you something.”
“Enough.” I kept my eyes on Henri, who had turned back toward the window, his profile to the room, watching the last of the storm move east across the city. “The threat isn’t coming from outside the circle. It’s moving inward. Through people Dominic trusts.”
“I know,” he said.
I looked at him.
“I’ve known since the watch. I’ve been waiting for the picture to complete itself. It’s almost there. We have work to do.”
Chapter eight
Thiago
“Henri didn’t conduct that night.”
