Iron Cast(65)

“I wanted to make sure everything was okay,” she said.

He was quiet for a few seconds. “Sure, I guess so,” he said. “You sound different. Is something wrong?”

Johnny was dead, and the Hemopath Protection Agency was lying in wait. Everything was wrong.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” she said. “You sound different too.”

Another pause.

“I can’t stop thinking about Stuart Delaney,” he said.

His voice was low, and Ada thought she heard a tremor.

“There was nothing you could do,” she said.

“Maybe.”

Ada listened to his breathing. She wound the telephone cord around her finger, counting the seconds that passed.

“None of us are safe anymore,” she said at last. She was thinking about the agents in her mother’s home. “We can’t go back to the way things were.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. He hesitated. “I think—I think if anyone can manage it, you and Corinne can.”

Someone called Charlie’s name, and he hollered at them to hold their horses.

“Sorry,” he said to her.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ada said. “I knew you had a show. I shouldn’t have called.”

“I’m glad you did.”

Ada’s heart skittered at the simple honesty in his voice, and she squeezed the receiver until her fingers hurt. Three days ago he’d told her he loved her. She still didn’t know how to say it back, or if she even could. The words were a precipice, and she was too afraid to leap.

“Go play your set,” she told him. “And stop flirting with me.”

She could hear the grin again, like music through the line.

“You’re the one who called me.”

“Good-bye, Charlie.”

“Good-bye, Ada.”

She hung up the receiver and slumped back in the chair. Her heart was still pounding an uneven rhythm, echoing in her ears and fingertips. She wondered if this was what it was like for patrons at the club, listening to music that filled them with unfamiliar emotions, letting that music carry them to places they could never reach on their own but always, always trusting that it would lead them safely home.

Giant double doors at the end of the ballroom opened onto an adjacent room with two parallel dining tables. Between shoulders and elbows, Corinne caught a glimpse of ornate candelabras and flower arrangements. The bride and groom, whom Corinne had been avoiding all night, entered first, followed by their parents. Corinne grabbed Gabriel’s arm.

“My mother is going to try to seat us at different tables,” Corinne said. “If you let that happen, I will possibly never forgive you.”

“I’m not sure what you expect me to do about it,” he said, but he was smiling.

Corinne’s name placard was near the head of the larger table, across from her parents. Gabriel thoughtfully pulled her chair out for her, then took the placard beside her and tossed it unceremoniously away.

“Someone named Hamish Everett,” he said as he sat down beside her.

Corinne snorted. Her mother, who had been saying something to Mr. Wells, eyed Corinne and Gabriel but apparently decided not to raise a fuss. After some shuffling at the lesser table to accommodate a miffed Hamish, the dinner was under way.

Mr. Wells wasn’t at his best during parties and focused mainly on his food. Corinne’s mother kept shifting in her seat, her smiles brief and fluttery, her eyes constantly darting. Corinne finally realized she was avoiding looking at Gabriel. He hadn’t said a word and wasn’t shoveling food with his hands or anything, so Corinne couldn’t figure out her mother’s problem. Maybe she was just angry that he wasn’t Hamish Everett, who was supposedly Boston’s most eligible bachelor now that Angela Haversham had snatched up Corinne’s brother.

Phillip and Angela were in fine form, holding hands under the table and sneaking kisses when they thought no one was looking. To please her mother, Corinne exchanged a few polite words with them, but she couldn’t look at Angela’s expensive gown or multitude of diamonds without thinking that the entire ensemble had been funded by Haversham Asylum. And now her brother was a part of it. If her father had his way, Phillip’s upcoming political campaign would revolve around an expansion of the asylum.

When it came time for Corinne’s toast, she was two glasses of red wine deep and having trouble picking up her fork. Finally she managed to clink it against the side of her glass. Gabriel stood up, ostensibly to pull out her chair, but he ended up holding her elbows as she found her feet.

“You’re drunk,” he whispered in her ear.

“Only a little. It’s when I do my best work,” she said.

He shook his head and sat back down.

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” Corinne said, keeping both hands on the table edge to steady herself. “As most of you know, I’ve only just come back from school, and I’m afraid there’s not enough time between studies to write a meaningful speech.”

She chanced a look at Phillip and Angela, who were holding hands again. Their smiles were bland and practiced. Corinne was surprised that Phillip hadn’t interrupted yet to say something patronizing.

“Instead,” she continued, “I’d like to offer a poem I came across recently, by Lewis Carroll. I thought of my brother and soon-to-be sister when I read it.”