Chapter 5: The Name in the Message
Adrian stared at the message for long enough that Elena noticed.
"What is it?" she asked.
He turned the phone so she could see the screen.
She read it.
Her expression didn't change dramatically — just a small tightening around the eyes, the kind that meant she was thinking rather than reacting.
"Do you know the number?" she asked.
"No."
Warren leaned across the table.
Adrian tilted the phone toward him without being asked.
Warren read the message.
He took out his own phone and photographed the screen.
"Don't reply," he said.
"Don't delete it."
"I wasn't going to."
"Some people do.
Instinct." Warren set his phone down.
"Do you have any idea who else might be involved?"
Adrian thought about it.
The Harwick property was not a small matter — a commercial parcel on the edge of the city's redevelopment corridor, worth considerably more now than when the original agreement had been drawn up.
The kind of value that attracted people who had not been in the room when the original deal was made.
"The Harwick agreement had three parties," Adrian said.
"Me, Claire, and a silent investor who came in late.
His name was Devereux.
Philip Devereux."
Warren's pen stopped moving.
"Philip Devereux," he repeated.
"You know him."
"I know of him." Warren capped the pen.
"He had a dispute with the city planning office about eighteen months ago.
Permit irregularities on a development in the warehouse district.
It was resolved quietly."
"How quietly?"
"Quietly enough that his name didn't appear in the public record of the resolution." Warren looked at him.
"Someone helped him with that."
Elena had been listening without speaking.
Now she said, "Someone with connections to the city."
Both men looked at her.
"The councilman," she said.
"The one who was on his phone when you were reading the document.
He left the room two minutes after Ms.
Beaumont did."
Adrian turned in his chair.
The table where the councilman had been sitting was empty.
The napkin was still folded on the plate.
The chair had been pushed back at an angle, the way chairs looked when someone left in a hurry but was trying not to look like it.
"His name is Garrett," Adrian said.
"Councilman Dale Garrett.
He's been on the redevelopment committee for three years."
Warren was already typing on his phone.
"I need to make a call," he said.
He stood, buttoned his jacket, and walked toward the corridor near the service entrance — the same direction Elena had come from earlier.
Adrian and Elena were left at the table.
The dinner service had resumed around them, the way formal events always did — the machinery of the evening continuing regardless of what had happened inside it.
A waiter appeared and offered bread.
Adrian took a roll.
Elena shook her head.
"You should eat something," Adrian said.
"You've been on your feet since before I arrived."
"I'm fine."
"I know you're fine.
I'm saying you should eat something anyway."
She looked at him.
Then she took a roll.
They sat in silence for a moment.
It was not an uncomfortable silence.
"Why did you do it?" Adrian asked.
"Cross the room.
You didn't have to."
Elena broke off a piece of the roll.
"No."
"So why?"
She considered the question as if it deserved consideration rather than a quick answer.
"Because she touched your chair," she said finally.
"Not because you couldn't handle it.
I could see you were handling it.
But she touched your chair like it was furniture.
Like you were furniture." She paused.
"Nobody should be treated like that.
Especially not in a room full of people who are all pretending not to see it."
Adrian looked at her for a moment.
"How long have you worked here?" he asked.
"Fourteen months."
"Before that?"
She was quiet for a beat.
"I was finishing my master's degree.
Law.
I ran out of funding in the final semester.
This job covered the gap."
Adrian set down his bread.
"You're a law student."
"I was." She looked at the table.
"I'm registered to sit the bar in March.
If I can cover the exam fee by then."
The sentence landed without drama.
She hadn't meant it as a revelation.
That was what made it one.
Adrian's phone buzzed again.
The same unknown number.
This time the message said: *Devereux is in the building.
May you like
East parking structure.
He came with Garrett.*
