To the impatient assistant, it probably doesn’t appear to be anything more than politeness on Salem’s part, and Ashley’s, too. But I know that Salem’s only asked so she can secure a new source.
So she can more easily find Ashley again.
Salem smiles. “Well, thank you, Ms. Maxwell, for the tea.” She looks at the frowning assistant. “We’ll be on our way then.”
She sweeps past her, appearing almost comically unbothered. Tegan looks so shell-shocked that I nod toward Adam to go ahead so I can walk out beside her. The two of us are probably going toplinkour way all the way back down the steps and out the front door.
But right as Tegan and I are crossing the threshold out of the conference room, Salem and Adam already several steps ahead of us, Ashley whispers, “Um, wait. You dropped your—”
I turn around, but she’s not holding out anything to me. She whispers even more softly now. I want to tell her that she shouldn’t risk it, that Salem will surely reach out to her soon.
But she’s determined to speak before I can.
“Look, you should tell Salem it definitely wasn’t Lynton Baltimore who scammed my uncle.”
Tegan says, “How do you know?”
Ashley looks between us, and then her gaze settles—lingers—on me.
As though she might be putting something together for the first time.
Remembering something familiar.
“Because the person who got him to buy that necklace was a woman.”
Chapter 22
Adam
“Let me see it again.”
Jess continues to blink down at the screen of my phone, showing no discernible reaction to Tegan’s request. After a few seconds, she lifts her hand from her lap and brings it up to the table, and I think she’s finally going to pass the phone over to her sister.
Instead, she sets her thumb and forefinger onto the screen, close together, and then splits them apart.
Zooming in.
She blinks down at the screen again.
“Jess,” Tegan says.
I look over at Tegan, who seems more concerned by Jess’s silence than she is annoyed by it. When she meets my eyes, we have the same silent conversation we’ve been having since Ashley Maxwell sent the photo that Jess can’t stop staring at.
Is she okay?
I don’t know.
We seem to be alternating on who’s asking the question, and who’s answering it.
Tegan sighs. “I’m going to the bathroom.” When Jess doesn’t respond, she adds, “Maybe I can purchase some recreational drugs while there! Or meet someone who runs a desert commune!”
“Take your phone with you,” Jess says, eyes down, obviously not registering anything other thanI’m going to the bathroom.
Tegan rolls her eyes at me. But she does take her phone with her. I watch as she makes her way across the rooftop bar where we’ve been sitting for the last hour or so, ever since we checked into this hotel. It’s the nicest place we’ve stayed since this trip started, and it’s not too crowded in here yet, but still. I have a feeling that if Jess weren’t still in shock at seeing her mother in this photograph, she’d watch Tegan, too.
“She looks so different,” she murmurs now, and I’m not even sure if she’s talking to me or to herself. Tegan’s made it to the restroom, the door swinging shut behind her, so I turn my eyes first toward Jess, then toward the photo.
Charlotte Caulfield sitting at a small, round restaurant table with Dennis Kirtenour and his wife, Lisa. Her hair is dark brown, cut to her shoulders, straight and shiny. She’s looking directly at the camera, smiling without teeth.
