Chapter 4: The Right Person in the Wrong Room
"Who?" I said.
Nora's eyes moved carefully across the room.
"Do you know who Martin Holt is?"
"Richard's brother?"
"Richard's brother and the company's silent majority shareholder." She kept her voice low.
"He doesn't come to these events.
Ever.
But he's here tonight, and he arrived forty minutes before the doors opened."
I set my glass down slowly.
"You sent it to Martin Holt."
"I sent it to the person most likely to care," Nora said.
"Grant has been running a side arrangement through the company's vendor accounts.
Small amounts.
Redirected.
Nothing that would show up in a routine audit, but enough to fund an apartment lease, a car, dinners, weekends away." She looked at me steadily.
"I found it six weeks ago.
I didn't know how to tell you."
"Six weeks," I said.
"I'm sorry.
I needed to be sure before I said anything."
I didn't answer right away.
Six weeks ago I had been home with two newborns and a husband who came home smelling like someone else's perfume and told me I was imagining things.
"Where is he?" I said.
"Corner table.
Gray suit.
He's been watching Grant since he arrived."
I found him without difficulty.
Martin Holt was in his late fifties, heavier than his brother, with the kind of stillness that belongs to people who have learned that patience is its own form of power.
He was holding a glass of water.
He hadn't touched it.
As if he felt me looking, he glanced across the room.
He gave me a single, small nod.
I nodded back.
Grant appeared at my shoulder without warning.
"Who are you looking at?"
"No one," I said.
He followed my eyeline and found Martin Holt's table.
Something shifted in his face — not quite fear, but the thing that lives just before it.
"Why is Martin here?" he said, almost to himself.
"I have no idea," I said.
"Do you?"
He didn't answer.
He was already moving, crossing the room with the careful speed of a man trying not to look like he's running.
Nora watched him go.
"He's going to try to talk his way out of it."
"Let him try," I said.
We watched from across the room.
Grant reached Martin's table and leaned down, one hand on the back of the empty chair.
Martin looked up at him without expression.
Grant said something.
Martin said something back.
Grant's hand tightened on the chair.
Then Martin placed a single sheet of paper on the table between them and smoothed it flat with two fingers.
Grant straightened up.
Even from where I stood, I could see that the color had left his face entirely.
Martin picked up his water glass, took a slow sip, and set it back down.
He said one more thing.
Then he turned his attention back to the room, as though Grant were no longer standing there.
Grant stood at that table for another five seconds.
Then he walked — not toward me, not toward the blonde, not toward Richard — but straight toward the exit.
Nora touched my arm.
"He's leaving."
"I know," I said.
"What do you want to do?"
I watched the door close behind my husband.
"Nothing tonight," I said.
"Tonight is already done."
But when I reached into my clutch to check my phone, there was a message from a number I didn't recognize.
*Mrs.
Calloway.
I think we should speak before the evening ends.
May you like
— M.
Holt.*
