Page 87 of Cruel Lies

He smiles, slow, and holds out his hand. "There's still a song left."

I look at his hand. Then I look up at him, at the blue and the gray, at the man who tells the truth at all costs, who took every mirror off my walls so I'd have to ask him what I look like.

I put my hand in his.

"One more," I say. "But then you better get me home before I turn into a pumpkin."

"As you wish," he says.

He pulls me back onto the floor, under the biggest light in the room. I go easily, and I don't fold up small, and I don't look for a mirror.

I just dance.

24

RONAN

FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLIER

I shepherd Todd through the side doors and into a service hallway. It's utilitarian back here. Bare walls, a rack of folded chairs, the hum of a big fridge. The noise of the party drops away when the doors close.

Todd yanks his shoulder out from under my hand. "Don't touch me," he snarls.

That's a mistake, but I let him have it. I take a step back and put my hands in my pockets and I look at him. He's sweating. His collar's damp. The tux fits him wrong across the middle, like it was cut for the man he was two years ago.

"What would you like to say to me?" I ask him.

"This is a setup." He points a finger at me. "You and her, you're together now, is that it? You took my case, you sat on it, and now, you're—what, screwing my wife?"

"Ex-wife," I correct. "And no. That's not what this is."

"Then what is it?"

I don't answer him right away. I look at him and I let the silence do some work. He can't stand it. Men like Todd never can. He fills it himself.

"She's crazy, you know that?" he blurts. "Messed-up in the head. What she did at the bank, that wasn't normal. A normal person doesn't do that. She humiliated me in front of my whole firm. My whole industry. Do you know what that costs a man?"

"I do, actually," I say. "I watched it happen."

"So you know." He's nodding now, fast, like he's found an ally. "You saw. That's not a stable person. That's a woman who needs help. And she's got my kids. My kids, man. She's poisoning them against me. I can't even see them!"

"You could see them," I say. "You chose to stay in a hotel and stew instead."

He blinks at me.

"I read your file, Todd. All of it. I know what you asked me for the day you sat in my office and threw money on my desk. You wanted everything. The house. The cars. The accounts. The company she built.Andthe children. You wanted a court to hand you two kids you couldn't be bothered to pick up from school unless it got you closer to their teacher."

His face goes gray. It's even better than I anticipated.

"That was privileged," he says weakly. "That conversation. You can't?—"

"I can do whatever I want," I say. "It's my party."

He takes a step back. His shoulder hits the chair rack and it rattles enough to spook him.

I don't move toward him. I don't need to. I just let him understand, slowly, that there is no one in this hallway who is going to help him.

"Here's what's going to happen," I tell him. "You're going to leave. Tonight. You're going to take your lady friend in the gold dress and you're going to walk out the front. Thefront,mind you, because I want witnesses who see you leave under your own willpower. And then you're going to sign the papers when they come to you, exactly as they're written, and you're going to stop texting her at four in the morning telling her she has no idea who she's dealing with."