Page 64 of Don't Tell

He stops talking and looks at the screen for the length of one long breath and another, and a flicker crosses his face.

“Splendid. Just as I said before, she is a raw talent. Passionate. Is she here? I want to meet her tonight. I’m considering securing a deal tonight. That is, if you don’t snatch her from me.”

“You'd better move fast, then.”

I find Suzanne at the bar station. I lean across the counter and keep my face flat. I quietly tell her I need three minutes, that the man I emailed is here to see her, and that she should ask her floor captain for a bathroom break.

She nods once and finds her captain. She murmurs something to him.

She crosses to the side of the room.

I introduce them. "Eli Brandt, the gallerist I told you about. Eli, this is Suzanne, the artist whose work you’ve been looking at."

He extends his hand. "It's a pleasure."

"Likewise."

He asks her two questions he's used since 2018 to see if someone sees the world the way he hopes they do.

"What are you working on right now, and what is the last thing you saw that made you stop walking?"

She answers naturally, like she did with Hana in my conference room. She doesn't perform or struggle. She's already thought it through.

He hands her his card. "I'd like to meet with you next week at the gallery. We'll talk about what you're working on and whether what I do is what you want."

"Thank you."

"Excited to see you again, Suzanne."

He does not look at her uniform or at the apron. He treats her as what she is, which is a painter he has decided he wants to represent.

She thanks him a second time and returns to the bar station.

I watch her go.

I turn to track her across the room, and I see Maddox instead.

Adrian Maddox is at the edge of the crowd in a charcoal suit, not holding a drink, standing alone by the second-to-last temporary wall. He has been in this room — I register this now — for some time. He has not approached me or made himself visible. He is just there.

Why is the hermit here?

I watch him for three seconds.

He is not looking at me, but at her.

His face shows that look a man gets when he's just learned something useful. He watches her carry her tray across the room. He studies her carefully — her apron, her hair, and how her right hand holds the tray's edge.

He's clocking her, I realize.And I need to break his line of sight before he finishes.

I move before I have thought it through. The goal is to get between Maddox and her, interrupt his observation, make him lose the thread. I don't need to speak to her. I just need to be there.

I cross the room and reach her at the wall by the kitchen door. I touch the small of her back to redirect her toward the side of the room.

She looks up. "You okay?" She glances around the room.

I follow her eyes and see what I have just done.

I see the camera angles and the people whose heads have turned a quarter-degree. I see Maddox, 15 ft. away. His focus is broken. He is no longer watching her. He is watching me.