“Can you zoom in?” Margot asked.
Tessa pinched the screen. The image blurred, then resolved. Dark polo. Khaki pants. Vendor uniform. The face was turned away, but the build was familiar. Broad shoulders. Confident stride.
“Send it to me,” Margot said. “Don’t post it. Don’t share it. Don’t mention it to anyone.”
“Not even for content?”
“Especially not for content.”
Tessa nodded, serious for once, and walked away.
Margot and Evan stood at the terrace railing and watched the clip together. She held the phone between them, tilted so they could both see, and he leaned in. His shoulder pressed against hers. His jaw was inches from her temple. She could feel the warmth of him through her sleeve, could smell the salt and motor oil that she’d started associating with steadiness.
She was focused on the screen. She was also aware of every point of contact between his body and hers, which was exactly one shoulder and approximately four square inches of fabric, and it was taking up roughly half her brain.
He watched it twice without speaking. She watched him take it in. The way his jaw set. The way his thumb stopped moving against the phone case where he’d been turning it.
“Dark polo. Khakis. Vendor uniform,” he said. “Could be anyone on the crew.”
“How many on the vendor crew know the service corridor leads to the breaker panel?”
“One who’s been doing events here for years.”
They looked at each other over the phone screen. The morning sun was warm on their faces, and for a moment the investigation and the expo and the hundred and seventy thousand dollars of missing glass all receded to the edges, and there was just this.
Two people looking at each other and seeing the same thing.
“We still need more,” he muttered.
“I know.” She pocketed the phone. Their shoulders were still touching. Neither of them moved. “The bartender from the showcase. Mick. He might have seen something.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Alone?” The word was out before she could edit it, and it carried something that had nothing to do with protocol.
He looked at her for a second longer than the question needed. “I’ll come find you after.”
She nodded, and didn’t say the rest of it, that she’d started counting on the after.
Chapter nineteen
A Good Man
EvanfoundMickCallahanbehind the bar polishing glasses with slow, methodical focus, like the work itself kept him steady.
Before Evan could sit down, Mick glanced up. “I know who you are. You’re the one asking questions about the ornaments.”
Evan scanned the bar. “I suppose word travels fast.”
Mick slid an espresso across the counter without asking what Evan wanted. “You’re the one asking around about the ornaments. And I was working the showcase. Guess that’s why you’re here.”
“Guilty. So, what’d you see?”
“Caleb Henson at my bar. Club soda. Chatted up the glass artist’s assistant for ten minutes. Bought her a sparkling water. Then he left for about five minutes.” Mick set a glass on the rack. “When he came back, his energy was different.”
“Different. How?”
Mick shrugged. “I’ve watched people lie across this bar for thirty years. A man changes when he’s carrying something he doesn’t want seen.”
