Aurora(47)

“What?”

“I do all the gifts for senior staff. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, housewarming, babies, all of it. Every single one of them, and I do them myself. We never sent anyone patio furniture. I would have remembered.”

Marques looked stricken. “That’s so weird. Shit, I wonder who it was, then? We owe somebody a thank-you note!”

“I am, literally, the last person on earth who cares if you lied to Thom.”

Marques looked around, nodding, buying time while he thought. When he turned back to Ann-Sophie, all pretense was gone. “Thank God. That was exhausting.”

“Beth is . . . what then?” Ann-Sophie asked.

“Next-door neighbor.”

“Are you a couple?”

“Nope. She’s gay.”

Ann-Sophie broke into the biggest smile she’d enjoyed in months. “So she just hitched a ride with you?”

“No, no, it wasn’t her, it was totally my idea. Everything they were saying on TV that was going to happen? She had no idea what to do. She’s on her own, with a little kid. I practically forced them to come with me.”

“And what you said about her father being dead?”

“Kearie’s father was a donor. Neither one of them ever met him. Goddamn, I feel so much better. I’m sorry, I’m not a natural liar.”

“That’s a good quality, not a bad one.”

“We’ll go if you want us to.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “I consider what you did heroic.”

“Fuck, I feel better. Hey, do you want a drink? Like a drink-drink?”

Ann-Sophie pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. “I would love a drink-drink.”



Ninety feet above them, in the communications room on the third subterranean floor, Thom watched their images on one of a bank of control-room monitors. The pin-dot cameras that had been placed in the upper-left corner of the LED screens in the living rooms of all the units were a need-to-know-only feature of the accommodations, and certainly the residents didn’t need to know. Thom had intended to use them only in case of medical emergencies and never planned for them to be any kind of surveillance device. But Ann-Sophie had been cold to him for the past several days, barely speaking at all, and when he’d seen her get in the elevator with a bag of food gifts and a bouquet of flowers, his natural curiosity, coupled with years of dating faithless models, had gotten the better of him. He’d come to the comms room and monitored her progress down to level nine, and into Marques’s apartment.

Now he could see but not hear them as they poured the good red wine she’d brought and toasted each other on the sofa. What in the name of sweet Jesus was that all about?

There was no one else in the communication room at the time, as there wouldn’t be from that moment forward. When Thom left that day, he issued clear instructions that from then on no one was to enter the room except at his specific invitation, and even then, only in his company, which would allow him to go in first and turn off any monitors he didn’t want seen at that particular moment.

If his wife was going to start fucking his pilot, he’d make goddamn well sure he was the only one who knew about it.





18.





Aurora

Aubrey looked through the windows of the car as she walked up her front steps. The dark-haired teenage girl, her long locks pulled back in a tight ponytail, sat in the front seat with Scott.

Aubrey hid her annoyance and attempted a casual wave, but neither of them noticed her. Scott was talking, gesturing, nodding, putting a hand on the young lady’s arm. Finally, some sort of agreement seemed to be reached and they got out of the car. Scott came around to help as the girl reached into the back seat and pulled out a heavily stuffed backpack.

They approached Aubrey on the sidewalk, Scott just behind the girl, holding a hand out to Aubrey, low, a gesture that said both “I can explain” and “Please don’t you dare fuck this up.”

Aubrey forced a smile. “Hi, I’m Aubrey,” she said, figuring that was about as uncontroversial as she could possibly get.

The girl stopped short of her and looked down. Scott stepped in, making the introductions.

“This is Celeste.”

Aubrey took a moment, digesting that. She had never met Scott’s latest girlfriend in person, nor had she seen pictures, not even online when she’d searched fruitlessly for her on Instagram. There was very little Aubrey knew about her, other than that she was in Scott’s grade at school, her home life was unpleasant, and she was Black. Yes, she was certain on all three of those things. She examined Celeste now, noting that this person was not, in fact, Black. Celeste was not Black, Celeste was not Brown, Celeste was not even cream-colored. Celeste’s skin was so white it was almost translucent. If Aubrey had to guess her ethnic background, she might have gone with Estonian.

“Hello, Celeste. Nice to finally meet you,” Aubrey offered, trying to speak without inflection. “I have to confess, I always get your name mixed up, I keep calling you Caprice. Scott gives me so much shit about it. He’s hilarious.” She looked at Scott. “You’re hilarious.”

Scott just stared daggers at her. Celeste tucked her hair behind her ear and looked between them, sensing something was up but not wanting to pick at it. “That’s funny,” she said, which is what people say when they don’t think something is funny. “Thank you for letting me stay with you.”