Page 66 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Max sat straighter.

Quinn sighed. “There it starts.”

The woman smiled. “Excuse me?”

“He’s unbearable when he gets compliments.”

Max looked straight ahead, noble and entirely unrepentant.

The woman let out a genuine laugh, and I saw the tension leave Quinn’s shoulders. It was a small thing. A passing moment. But Quinn had done it without effort, folding the woman into the evening instead of treating her like part of its machinery.

We followed the signs toward the ballroom.

The charity event occupied most of the hotel’s main level. A silent auction stretched through the adjoining gallery, where tables displayed weekend getaways, private dinners, signed first editions, custom pet portraits, and one rather regrettable sculpture of a dog made from reclaimed forks.

In the ballroom, tall arrangements of greenery and white blossoms surrounded the stage. A string quartet played near the far windows. Along one wall, a series of large photographs showed service dogs in training beside veterans, children, and older adults whose hands rested in thick fur with unmistakable trust.

Quinn slowed at the first photograph.

It showed a young boy seated on a hospital bed, one hand buried in the coat of a golden retriever wearing a red training vest. The boy’s face was turned away from the camera. The dog looked directly at the lens.

Quinn’s smile softened.

Max moved closer to her leg.

“These are beautiful,” she said.

“They are effective,” I replied, then heard how cold that sounded and corrected myself. “And beautiful.”

She glanced at me, but she didn’t tease me for it. “That’s good fundraising. You approve?”

“I approve of people seeing what they’re paying for. Not in a depressing infomercial way. In a look what dignity costs and why it’s worth it way.”

I looked at the photographs again.

I’d always thought of these events as performances. Some of them did good, certainly. They raised money for their causes, funded buildings and scholarships and clinics named after people whose families needed the public reminder that generosity could coexist with tax planning. But the structure of it had long repelled me: the luxury, the gowns, the speeches, the private negotiations disguised as moral urgency.

Beside Quinn, the structure didn’t vanish, but it became easier to see the use inside it.

A server approached with champagne.

Quinn accepted a glass. I took a glass as well, though I didn’t drink. “Earlier, you objected to alcohol before professional conversation.”

“I objected to secret car whiskey,” she said. “This is public champagne. Totally different.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. One glass, sipped slowly, gives me something to do with my hands and keeps me from looking like I’m about to cross-examine the floral arrangements.”

“And your ability to speak professionally?”

“Intact. Possibly improved if someone asks me about donor tiers and I have to adlib.”

I looked at the glass. “A narrow exception, then.”

“Exactly. Gala law.”

“I’m not familiar with that field.”