“What did you tell Ritchie about all this Skelton business?” Placide asks when he’s closed the door behind her.
Jack stalls for time. “You mean, about the article?”
“I assume he wanted to get to the bottom of it?”
Jack acknowledges that he did, but he stops short of telling him the truth, which is that Ritchie talked of little else. “He asked for an inventory of all the chandeliers, lamps, and candelabras the company owns.”
“And did you give it to him?”
“What choice did I have?” asks Jack. “If I hadn’t, it would have looked like I had something to hide.”
“What else did he ask for?”
“He wanted a diagram of the chandelier’s rigging.”
“And am I to assume you gave him that, too?”
Jack nods.
“Jesus Christ,” says Placide, who has begun pacing the small room like a caged animal. “Did you do anything at all to push the slave revolt story?”
“I—I did,” Jack stutters. “I think.”
Placide stops moving all of a sudden and stares Jack down. “I’m beginning to think you’re the leak.”
“The leak?”
“Someone told Skelton what happened.”
“It wasn’t me!” says Jack, fear rising in his throat. The last thing he needs is for Anderson or Placide to get it in their heads that he went to Skelton. “I don’t even know Skelton.”
Placide laughs. “You don’t have to know him to tell him all our secrets.”
“But I didn’t,” says Jack.
“Anderson told me what you said to him, on the way back from the capitol. About going to the authorities,” Placide says.
Jack shuts his eyes. Of course he did. “I was just talking. I didn’t actually do it.”
“How do I know what you did or didn’t do?”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“It’s obvious you don’t like what’s happening here.”
“Perhaps not,” says Jack, “but I do like my own neck.”
Placide lets out a low laugh. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Honestly. I didn’t go to Skelton.”
“Well, someone who was backstage talked to him,” says Placide. “That much is clear.”
“What about Mr. Green?” Jack offers, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them.
Placide shakes his head, like he’s got water in his ears and didn’t hear Jack properly. “JohnGreen?”
Jack nods.
