So I do the only thing I can do. I nod. “Of course,” I say. “Lead the way.”
“You’re not goinganywhere—” DeMaris starts to roar.
“Senator.” The planner finally turns to him, and her voice changes, dipping into a warm and motherly register. “Sir, why don’t you come with me and let me take a look at that cut? Angie is on her way with the medical kit. Tabitha is asking for you for the father-daughter dance in about twelve minutes, and we want to get you cleaned up before then. Sound good?”
DeMaris splutters. He gestures wildly all around him. But the planner has already gotten an arm around his shoulders and is whispering reassurances as she removes him from the scene.
The security goons await. The bigger one readjusts his grip on the nightstick.
“Coming, gentlemen.” I take one step.
Then I stop. Because I can’t leave without looking at her.
Cass is still standing in the doorway of the powder room. She hasn’t moved. The hand that was over her stomach has dropped to her side, where her fingers are working the silk of her dress between them.
There are no words for this. There’s no apology in any language I speak—and I speak several—that would do for this moment.I’m sorry, dikarka. I’ll make up for this.
But there’s no time for that.
It’s simply time to leave.
The security guards flank me as we pass back into the ballroom, hugging a rear wall while everyone turns their attention up to the band on stage.
I watch the planner and Senator DeMaris disappear into the crowd. By tomorrow, the cut at his eyebrow will be a Steri-stripped inconvenience, and the official story will be that the senator took a tumble on his way back from the men’s room,ha ha, Jozy always could hold his liquor right up until he couldn’t, ha ha.The Plaza will eat the cost of his dry cleaning. His daughter will not be informed. There will be no police report.
The wedding planner is, in her way, doing me a favor. She’s saving the night. In fact, she’s saving everything—except the one thing I came here to save.
We reach the ballroom doors. They’ve been propped open with brass stanchions to let in the air. Just before I pass through them, I look across the room.
It takes me a second to find Raymond. He’s not where I left him.
For a half-breath, I think he’s gone—out, after Cass, on his way to somewhere terrible. My ribs flare with the nerve pain.
Then I find him.
He’s moved about ten feet to the left of the partners’ cluster, where he has a clean sightline through the propped-open doors and down the corridor I’ve just been escorted out of.
And he is looking right at me.
Not at the senator’s corridor. Not at the powder room. Not at the bridesmaid, Brittany, who is still fawning for his attention.
Atme.
For most of the evening, Raymond has been wearing the face he wears at functions, the one that goes with the bourbon and the elbow-jabs and the off-color jokes about his wife’s dress.
Now, that face is gone. In its place is something I have never seen on him before. The cheeks are still pink, the bourbon is still in his hand, the tuxedo is still rumpled—but theeyeshave changed. The eyes are flat and cold. Unblinking.
And entirely,entirelysober.
He tilts his glass an inch in my direction. It could be a mocking, all-knowing salute or simply a tired man adjusting his grip. From this distance, with this many floral arrangements between us, it could be anything at all.
But I know better. This is a small, private acknowledgement, from one man to another.
I see you, Matvei Satyrin.
Then I step outside and he disappears from view.
37
