Chapter 9

Prescott tried the truth first as a defense, which is how men like him always try it.

"I read the list three weeks ago," he said. "Yes. I knew the Reyes family planted the original block. That's public record. That's on a plaque." He gestured at the plaque, at the crowd, at the whole stupid afternoon. "I cut four minutes of run-of-show for the ceremony timeline. That's my job. I don't run a museum."

"Twelve minutes," Odette said.

"Excuse me?"

"The blessing slot was twelve minutes with the walk-up and the walk-back. I built the run-of-show with you. It was twelve."

Prescott's jaw worked.

"Fine. Twelve."

"Say the rest of it," Odette said.

"There's nothing else."

"There's always the rest of it. You're three weeks from a final interview with the Meridian Collective. You needed the show tight. You needed it to be a tape." She let that sit on the lawn in front of two hundred people. "So you cut the family who planted this ground out of the ceremony. And when the actual man showed up at your gate in a torn jacket, you didn't call the office. You didn't call me. You called security."

Silence.

"That's not-" Prescott started.

"You called security," Odette said, "because if he got inside and somebody said his name out loud, I would find out what you did to my program."

Prescott's face did something then that nobody who worked for him had ever seen. It went small.

Dana Whitlock set her champagne down on the table beside the sugar skulls and took out her phone.

"Twelve minutes," she said, mostly to herself. Then she looked at him. "Blaine, I want you to hear this in front of these people, because it's the only part of this that's mine. I'm withdrawing your final round."

"Dana-"

"Not for the twelve minutes. Anyone can make a hard call on a run-of-show." She put the phone away. "For the gate. I hire people who can run a room. I don't hire people who call security on a man's father so nobody finds out they took a shortcut. Somebody in this valley is going to hire you again. I hope they're watching."

Odette reached up and unclipped the enameled badge from Prescott's lanyard. It came off with a small plastic click that everyone heard.

She didn't hand it back to him. She dropped it, and it landed in the gravel, and she let it lie there.

"You have twenty minutes to be off this property," she said. "Rudy will walk you to your car. Take the crest pin off before you get to the road."

Prescott walked. Past the bridesmaids who had laughed at the gate, and who were crying now, which was worse. Past Rudy Tavares, who looked at the ground. Past Nell Farraday, who did not look at him at all.

His badge stayed in the gravel. Somebody's heel went over it later and it was never found.

Odette picked the clipboard up off the table and held it out to Tommy Reyes.

"The Block 1 blessing is at 4:20," she said. "It's yours. If you want it."

Tommy looked at the clipboard like it was a live thing.

At the top of the aisle path, Marisol Vega, back in her shoes, said one word.

"Wait."