Chapter 1 - The Man Who Walked Straight Toward Me
He didn't look lost. That was the first wrong thing about him.
At a charity gala, every man who doesn't belong scans the room for a bar or a bathroom or someone who looks like money. This man didn't scan anything. He came through the crowd near the east marble column with his shoulders squared and his eyes locked on me, past the chandeliers and the waiters with their trays and the low murmur of two hundred donors pretending they weren't checking the silent auction on their phones. He wore a black button shirt with the sleeves pushed back, and ink ran up both forearms and into his neck. The silver cross at his throat caught the light every time he moved. And standing ten feet to my left, half in the hallway glow, was a server in a black uniform with white buttons who wasn't serving anyone at all.
My name is Elena Ward, and I was forty-three and supposed to be in charge of that room.
The foundation's fall gala had started at seven. By eight-forty the ballroom air had gone warm with perfume and candle heat, and I'd planted myself by the column because the photographer had asked for board members there after the speeches. The chandeliers threw soft gold halos over the cream walls. Someone laughed too loud near the string quartet. I could feel the marble cold through the back of my dress where I'd leaned just to steady myself. That's when I saw him again, closer. Slicked-back dark hair. Goatee trimmed tight. The tattoos weren't the blurry kind you see from a distance. Up close they had edges, script and numbers and a dark wing climbing his jaw toward his ear. His hands were loose at his sides, controlled. He didn't blink much. He didn't look at the server. He didn't look at anyone but me.
The cross stopped me breathing right. It was small, silver, on a thin chain that had gone dark in the links from years of wear. I'd known a cross like that once. I'd held it in my fist in a hospital waiting room while a vending machine hummed, and I'd told myself I would never see it again. Now here it was, moving toward me one steady step at a time through a room full of tuxedos. The server hadn't moved either. Black fabric covered his whole head, his whole face, no eyes, no mouth, just cloth, with his hands held up at his chest like he was waiting for a cue. Guests flowed around him with their champagne, glancing and then glancing away, the way people do when they don't want to make it impolite.
May you like
He was twenty feet away, then fifteen. I could hear my own breath going in and out too fast, and I tried to slow it. A woman in green brushed his arm and said excuse me and he didn't even turn. My fingers tightened around my clutch until the clasp bit into my palm. I thought about the private donor suite behind me, its door cracked just enough to show the dark hallway inside, and how easy it would be to slip through it and lock it and fix my face in the mirror. I thought about Richard asking me that morning if everything was handled, and me saying yes. The quartet shifted into something lower, strings pulling tight under the talking. Ten feet now. I could see a scar split his left eyebrow. I could see the pulse in his neck under the ink.
I smiled at him. I couldn't help it. It wasn't warm and it wasn't welcoming, just the small practiced lift I'd used for ten years when a donor said something borderline and I needed three more seconds to decide what to do. I let my chin turn a fraction toward him and held it, feeling the air catch in my throat. He didn't smile back. His stern eyes stayed on mine, and the cross rose and fell with his breathing. Behind him, the server shifted his weight once but kept his hands exactly where they'd been, that black covered face pointed straight at us. The suite door creaked a little wider in the draft from the hallway, dark and open and waiting.
