Page 118 of Gave Proof Through the Night

He circles, doesn’t sit. “It would be so easy, you know. Things go missing when they’re transported from one place to another. I can help you. I’m the only one who can help you.”

“Just like you helped my dad?” I shake my head. “No thanks.”

His eyes narrow. “Your father didn’t have the vision I have. He's small-time.”

“Careful,” I say, and I don’t even have to fake the edge in it.

“Or what?” He almost laughs. “You'll set your hockey player on me?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Cart’s loaded,” Tanya murmurs, so soft I nearly miss it. “On my way to rendezvous.”

Hobbs tilts his head, studying me the way he probably studies old statues, looking for the crack. “I gotta hand it to you, though. Catching his eye was clever. But you'll break his heart the same way you break everything you touch.”

“The same way I’ll break you,” I say with a saccharine smile.

“Cart’s clear,” Zoe says. “Dale, get the van ready to roll.”

“Born ready,” Dale says.

“Splitting off now,” Tanya says. “Catch you on the flip side.”

“Me too,” says Ivy. “I’m getting out of here before Hobbs comes back.”

“You’re playing with fire, Armitage.” Hobbs gets in close now. “I don’t care who you are or who your great-great-grandparents were. You have no proof and no right. And the Friendship Jewel is under my protection. Mine!”

I let the silence sit long enough that he thinks he’s won it.

“And yet.” I take my time, looking at my fingernails. “Here you are. With me. Out here in this beautiful courtyard. I really love the twinkly lights, don’t you?”

Something flickers across his face before he catches it. His director candidacy. The board. Six years of climbing a ladder he built on my father’s back, and none of it worth anything if the one thing he’s supposed to be protecting walks out of that ballroom on his watch.

He doesn’t say another word. He turns and bolts back toward the ballroom.

“Whew!” says Ginger. “That was a tough crowd. But I made out with ten K in hotel vouchers anywhere in the world, so I call that a win.”

“Good job, Ginger,” Zoe says. “We’re clear and heading to headquarters.”

“Copy that,” Ginger says. “There’s a bottle of chardonnay with my name on it.”

“Dibs!” Ivy says.

“You can’t call dibs. I literally just said my name’s on it.”

“Wait. You actually wrote your name on it? Like with a Sharpie?”

“Shutting you guys off now, are we clear?”

Everyone but Rue, because Rue is long gone, echoes back. “Clear.”

I press a hand flat against my chest and let myself have exactly one full breath. We did it. We actually pulled this off.

That’s when Jeremiah comes through the same door Hobbs just vanished through, breathing hard. His tie is loose around his neck and he’s wearing a face I have never seen there before.

24

JEREMIAH