Chapter 2

They did. That was the part Celeste would remember - the boy in the damp hoodie holding the door for the girl in the cardigan, both of them laughing nervously, sliding into leather that still had plastic on the headrests. Wade walked them out, talking about the moonroof. The salesman by the window watched Celeste instead.

She didn't argue. She walked to the vestibule and stood where the rain ran down the glass in sheets, and read the small brass plaque mounted at shoulder height beside the door frame.

PROPERTY OF MARCHER COMMERCIAL TRUST. Suite 200, Broughton Commons. A phone number.

Wade had walked past that plaque a thousand times. She was almost certain of it.

Sonia came back with the Matheson tags in her fist and nowhere to put them. She stopped beside Celeste, close enough that her voice could stay low.

"I'm sorry," Sonia said. "I had your file on the desk. He took it."

"Where is it now?"

"His drawer."

Celeste nodded slowly, watching the boy in the SUV adjust the seat. "Who signs a delivery sheet here, besides Mr. Banner?"

"Mr. Pruitt signs at month end." Sonia glanced at the dark tower of glass offices along the back wall. "Day to day, deliveries are Wade's."

"And who signs the payment in?"

"The same." Sonia hesitated. "Your reservation came through the trust account. When it confirmed, the paging system read it out - 'Marcher Trust guests, please see the delivery desk.' He heard it."

"I remember," Celeste said.

"Three days ago. It said the name out loud, over the whole showroom."

"And he didn't look up."

Sonia didn't answer that.

Celeste turned from the glass. The sales journal still lay open on the marble, and from this angle she could read it upside down - the way she used to read test papers over a student's shoulder, quickly, without appearing to.

Her name was not the only one crossed out.

Three lines above hers, a name and a code. Two lines above that, another. Further back, a fourth. All within the last eleven days, all in the same pen, all with the same small circled number in the margin.

Her jaw tightened. This was not one bad afternoon. This was a method.

"Ms. Marlow?" Sonia said quietly. "You could come back tomorrow. Mr. Pruitt's in on-"

"No," Celeste said. "I'll wait."

She took out her phone and scrolled past her daughters, past the pantry's group thread, past the attorney who had drawn up the trust, down to a number she had never once had to use in person.

Before she could tap it, Wade's voice carried across the showroom, pitched to carry.

"Doyle. Yeah. Guest bay, the van with the pantry stickers on it." A pause. "It's sitting in a customer bay. Get it booted."