Richard recovered first.
“You don’t know what you have there.”
“I know the address on it,” Daniel said.
“I know who booked the room.
And I know the date.”
Jessica’s breath caught at that last word.
Daniel turned the invitation so she could see the embossed date, a Saturday in February, eight months before Hale Meridian Consulting hired her.
The supposed company dinner could not have introduced her to a company where she did not yet work.
“Tell him,” Richard said quietly.
Jessica shook her head.
“No.”
“You told me it was a networking event,” Daniel said.
“You came home saying a recruiter had suggested you apply.
I remember because we celebrated.”
“Daniel, please.”
“Tell me what happened before I learned your boss was sleeping in my bed.”
Richard took two steps toward him.
Daniel held his ground, conscious of the door at his back and the old plaster wall beside it.
Richard could threaten a salary, an apartment, a reputation; he could not make Daniel forget what he had seen.
“You’re confusing business with private matters,” Richard said.
“You brought the business into this room when you threatened my livelihood.”
Daniel stepped aside and pointed down the hall.
“Leave.”
For a moment Richard looked as if he might refuse.
Then he snatched his watch from the dish, picked up his jacket, and walked past Daniel with his jaw clenched.
At the threshold he stopped.
“Whatever Caroline told you, she’s not your friend.”
“I didn’t ask her to be.”
The front door slammed.
Daniel listened until he heard an engine start.
He stood in the bedroom without looking at Jessica.
The woman he had loved for eleven years was only six feet away, yet he felt that he had stepped into a stranger’s house.
“He lied to me,” she said at last.
“About the dinner?”
“About more than that.”
Daniel unfolded the invitation again.
Beneath the polished heading, it read: A Private Evening for the Families of the Saint Alden Case.
Jessica had spent years telling Daniel that the Saint Alden incident was something she never wanted to discuss.
Her younger brother, Peter, had died there at seventeen.
Officially it was a tragic accident during a youth program at an old lakeside residential center.
The case was closed.
The building had long since been torn down.
Daniel looked up.
“Why was your name on a guest list for that?”
Jessica pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
