Chapter 39: Halcyon

The envelope had held two things. A printout of Morgan’s report, with one word circled in Victoria’s red pen. Inconclusive. And a card, heavy stock, with a single line in her handwriting underneath.

You can explain this to me on Friday.

Lucas had read it once, put it in his pocket, and not looked at it again.

Halcyon occupied the top floor of a glass tower on the river. There was no sign on the street. The elevator opened directly into a dining room lit almost entirely by candles and the city below. A host in a black suit met Lucas before he had taken two steps, said his name without asking for it, and led him past a dozen occupied tables to a booth in the far corner, half hidden behind a carved wooden screen.

Victoria was already there.

She wore black. A dress with long sleeves and a neckline that dipped low enough to make a point and no lower. Her hair was down, which he had never seen in the office. A glass of red wine sat in front of her, half finished. A second glass, full, waited at the place across from her.

"You are late," she said.

"I am four minutes early."

"I have been here for twenty." She tilted her head at the seat. "Sit."

He did not sit across from her. He slid into the curved booth on her side instead, close enough that the candlelight caught them both. He moved the full wine glass a few inches away from himself as he did it.

Victoria watched the glass, then watched him.

"You refused my scotch on Monday," she said. "Now you refuse my wine. I am starting to take it personally."

"I would rather be sharp with you than comfortable."

"Most men are comfortable with me for about thirty seconds before they realize they should not be." She turned her body toward him in the booth, one arm along the leather behind his shoulders. "You skipped the comfortable part entirely."

The System overlay brightened at the edge of his vision.

[Target: Victoria Sterling.]

[Current Primary Motive: Verification. The target wants to know whether the Host lied about the audit.]

[Secondary Motive: Desire. The target is enjoying the uncertainty more than she expected.]

A waiter appeared. Victoria ordered for both of them without looking at the menu. When he left, she reached into the small clutch beside her plate and set a folded paper on the table. Morgan’s report.

"Inconclusive," she said. "I hired the best forensic auditor in the city, and she found that my own contract is inconclusive."

"She found that too many people touched it," Lucas said.

"She found that my legal department’s custody procedures are under examination." Victoria tapped the line with one manicured nail. "That is a very polite way of saying someone in my building is a problem."

"It is."

"Is that you?"

She asked it lightly. Her eyes were not light at all.

Lucas did not look away. "If it were me, you would have a different report. She spent four hours with me in your archive. I carried her boxes. I read your custody slips. If she thought I was the problem, she would have written my name."

"And whose name would she write?"

"She has not decided," Lucas said. "But she is not looking at couriers anymore. She is looking at the people who knew what page forty-seven was for."

He watched the overlay as he said it.

Victoria did not move. Her breathing did not change. But her fingers, resting on the paper, pressed down very slightly against the table.

[Micro-Motive Perception Update.]

[Target is not surprised. Target is calculating.]

"Then she is wasting her time," Victoria said. "My lawyers have been with me for years."

"All of them?"

The question was soft. She heard the weight in it anyway. For a moment she looked at him the way she had on Monday night, when he set the scotch down untouched.

"You want to know if I trust my own people," she said.

"I want to know if you should."

The food arrived. Small plates, beautifully arranged, more art than dinner. Lucas ate. He had not eaten since a granola bar he had watched someone else finish in a basement, and he was not going to pretend for her benefit that he was above hunger. Victoria noticed. Something about it seemed to amuse her. She did not touch her own plate. She lifted her wine and drank slowly, watching him over the rim.

"You have changed," she said. "Not long ago you held the door for me and could not meet my eyes. Now you sit on my side of the booth and interrogate me over dinner."

"You invited me to tell you how I learned to give you orders."

"I did." She set the glass down. Her knee touched his under the table. She did not move it away. "So tell me."

"I watched you," Lucas said. "For a long time. You never ask a question you do not already know half the answer to. You never raise your voice unless you want someone to hear it. And you never let anyone close enough to see when you are tired."

"And you think you have seen it."

"I saw it on Monday."

Victoria was quiet. In the candlelight her face was very still, and very close. She reached over and touched the edge of his jaw with two fingers, as if she were checking whether he was real.

"That is a dangerous thing to say to me," she murmured.

"Only if it is wrong."

Her fingers slid down to his collar and stayed there. Her breathing had slowed. He could feel the warmth of her through the narrow space between them, could smell the jasmine on her wrist. Every signal the System gave him said the same thing. She was waiting to see whether he would close the last few inches.

He did not.

He took her hand from his collar, gently, and laid it back on the table over Morgan’s report.

"You have not answered my question," he said.

Victoria laughed. It was low and real and surprised out of her. She did not pull her hand out from under his.

[Strategic Restraint Successful.]

[Victoria Sterling’s attraction has deepened. Target’s guard has lowered by a measurable degree.]

"Fine," she said. "You want to know whether I trust my lawyers. I trust them the way I trust a loaded gun. I know exactly which way they point."

"And Nathan Cole?"

He had not meant to say the name yet. But her fingers had gone still under his when he mentioned legal, and he wanted to see what the name did.

It did more than he expected.

Victoria’s face did not change. But she slid her hand free, picked up her wine glass, and finished it in a single swallow.

"Nathan came to my office this morning," she said. "He told me your auditor was in the archive with you until midnight. He told me he was worried you were steering her."

"Steering her where?"

"Toward him." She set the glass down. "He asked me to have her removed from the engagement."

"Did you?"

"No." Victoria leaned in until her lips were almost at his ear. Her voice dropped so low only he could hear it. "I told him I would think about it. Then I had my head of security pull his phone records for the last two years."

Lucas kept his breathing slow.

"And?"

Victoria drew back just far enough to look into his eyes. Her own were bright and cold and very, very interested.

"And he has been calling a number in Delaware every week since before you started fetching my coffee," she said. "So you are going to tell me, Lucas, exactly what you and Ms. Hale found in that box."