He smiled and went to find Audrey.
CHAPTER 29
CAMILA
I had thrown-in my baby blue dress with the small white flowers on it into my bag the night we moved to the safe house, and now I was glad I did. The color matched the streamers, and I was choosing to believe it was a good omen rather than just a coincidence. Today’s event would be a success.
I came downstairs at seven-thirty to find Jason standing in the kitchen drinking coffee, and I stopped on the bottom step.
He was wearing the most comprehensively ridiculous outfit I had ever seen on an adult human being.
Multicolored stripes, jester-style, in every color that existed and several that shouldn’t. This was what was in the bag Audrey had slipped into Jason’s hand the evening before, and I had pretended not to notice it. I knew they were planning something big for the event, but that it included Jason becoming a ridiculous, silly clown, I couldn’t have guessed. He was wearing a matching jester hat with small bells at the points. And on his nose — his perfectly proportioned, objectively handsome nose — was a large red clown nose.
I started laughing before I could stop myself.
Then I registered his expression.
He was on the phone, and his face had the FBI-handler expression. He was talking to Briggs. I stopped laughing.
He caught my eye and held up one finger.One moment.
I waited.
“I understand the recommendation.” His voice was even, professional, the voice of someone who had spent years making decisions under pressure. “And I’m choosing to disregard it. I have the ability to protect my wife.” A pause. “My ex-wife. I’ll be in contact.”
He hung up.
He looked at me for a moment, and then the controlled expression released and he smiled. He honked the clown nose.
“How do I look?”
“Exactly as you intended,” I smiled. “Exactly as you and Audrey planned.” I looked at him properly.
“What did Briggs say?”
He set his coffee mug down. “The bodyguard, Pablo Moreno, was spotted in town last night.”
The morning felt slightly different after that — the same sunshine, the same blue dress, but with something underneath it that hadn’t been there before.
“Briggs said we shouldn’t go to the event today. It’s not safe.”
He looked at me directly. “But I told him we’re going. You’ve been planning this for months. The animals are ready. The people are coming.”
He picked up his jester hat, which had fallen slightly sideways, and straightened it. “You’re going to get a record donation this year.”
I looked at him — in his clown outfit, with his red nose, ready to take on the day, despite the warning.
“Okay,” I said.
He honked his nose, apparently testing its reliability.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The show was extraordinary.
I say this as someone who had seen pictures and videos of every Happy Hopes fundraiser for the past ten years and knew what they usually looked like — earnest, warm, modestly attended, the kind of event that raised enough to matter and not quite enough to transform.
This was different from the first hour.
