Page 43 of Velvet Vaughn

Something was going on. He was holding information back.

Leo recognized it because he’d been wearing the same expression since yesterday afternoon.

He kept his voice at the same easy pitch. “Your mom doing okay? I keep meaning to call her.”

“She’s fine. She’s good.” A beat too long. “Had a weird week, but she’s good.”

“Weird how?”

Devonte turned to him then, a quick, direct look that lasted less than a second before he glanced away. “Just one of those things. Nothing major.”

He picked up his fork again.

Leo let it sit for thirty seconds, the length of time it took Marv Collins to finish a thought about the stadium expansion and for the table to laugh and return to normal. Then he scooted a couple of inches closer to Devonte, elbows on the table, the posture of two men having a sideline conversation at a dinner they both had to be at.

“V.”

Devonte looked at him again. This time he didn’t look away.

“If something’s going on,” Leo murmured, “I need you to tell me.”

The table hummed around them. Silverware clanged against china. Curtis’s voice boomed at the head. Andrea laughed at a story Christine told.

Devonte put his fork down again, and this time he didn’t pick it back up.

“I got a call this morning.” His voice was so low it didn’t carry past Leo. “My mom. Something came to her house.”

“What kind of something?”

“A photo.” Devonte’s jaw set. “Of my sister. Coming out of her building at school.” His hand moved to his water glass and stopped short. “There was a circle on it. Around her head. Hand-drawn in red marker. Creepy-ass horror movie stuff.”

The ballroom kept moving around them like a stream bending around two stones.

Leo didn’t let anything change on his face. He’d been hearing Anja’s voice in the back of his head since they’d walked in. He’s going to want to give you the clean answer. Don’t let him. And if he’s already been contacted, he’s scared. Scared people need to hear that someone knows before they’ll say the rest of it out loud.

“How long ago?” Leo asked.

“Thursday. The package came to her house in Baton Rouge. No return address.” Devonte’s voice was controlled. “I told her it was probably nothing. A mistake. Wrong address.”

Seriously? When it was a picture of his sister? “Do you believe that?”

A long pause. Finally, “No. Hell, it was a snap of my little sis.”

Leo nodded once. He kept his hands loose on the table and his eyes on Devonte. He didn’t reach for his phone, look at Anja, or do any of the things that would’ve told the rest of the table something was happening in the corner of it.

“I need you to trust me on something.”

Devonte’s eyes sharpened. “I do.”

“Your family is going to be fine, but I need you to keep this conversation where it is right now.”

Devonte studied him with the intense focus he usually reserved for reading a safety’s pre-snap alignment. Then he gave a single, curt nod.

“Copy.” It wasn’t a word Devonte Cross used, and the fact that it came out anyway told Leo everything about how much weight the man across from him had been carrying.

The entrée arrived. Devonte picked up his fork and turned back to the table, and Leo did the same. The conversation around them folded them back in without missing a beat. Andrea was explaining to Christine that Nashville had better hot chicken than anyone in St. Louis wanted to admit. Brad Hatton was refilling his wine.

Anja’s knee pressed once, briefly, against Leo’s under the table.

She’d heard enough.