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Perfect.
Visualization was a cheap gimmick—one of the first he’d learned in speech therapy—but it worked.
“Judah?” Ginny asked.
Sean nodded.
“He’s staying at the 21c Museum Hotel downtown.”
After a beat, Sean said, “Us, too.”
She frowned and sat back down. “Judah’s manager, Paul, asked me to put you up at the Quality Inn with the rest of his staff. I don’t think he’ll be willing to pay for—”
“Don’t worry ab-bout that,” Sean said. He fumbled a little on the b, one of his trickier sounds, but it didn’t matter. In his imagination, he could smell the furniture polish the cleaning crew used to make the conference table shine, and his throat was loosening up. Katie was gone. If he took it slow, he could say whatever he wanted.
He inhaled. Important to breathe. It had been years since he had to do this—ten years?—but it was all coming back.
“We stay where he stays. Do you have the number for the hotel?”
She did. She pulled it up on her phone, and he programmed it into his tablet.
“Now tell me, what do you know about what, ah—”
His throat seized up. Visualization or no, Sean couldn’t say her name. Anything else, but not her name. That hard c at the beginning had once been his least reliable sound. K-k-k-katie C-c-c-clark. A stutterer’s nightmare.
He’d work around it. “What do you know about what my partner and I are doing here?”
Ginny smiled, giving him the same false one she’d used on Katie, and said, “You’re here because Judah wants your help with a personal matter.”
“Which is?”
“Personal.”
“Don’t you know what it is?”
She crossed her arms, her smile souring. “Judah wouldn’t say.”
Sean leaned back in the booth. If she didn’t know why they’d been hired, it wasn’t his business to tell her. Caleb had presented Katie and Sean with a confidentiality agreement they’d had to sign before they left town. They weren’t supposed to discuss the details of the case with anyone unless Pra
tt okayed it.
They had no details to share.
“What about tomorrow night? Are we still going to Lexington?” They’d been told Pratt would play two shows this weekend, one in each city.
“As far as I know.”
“Where are we staying there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Find out. If we’re not all in the same place, move us to wherever Judah’s going to be. I want rooms on the same floor.”
“He’ll be in the penthouse.”
“Then I want rooms nearby.”
“Fine.” Ginny’s tone had grown peevish. She hadn’t expected him to push her around. Sorry, kid.
