Page 104 of Boardroom Ties
“A gas leak?” I repeat in shock.
“Yes ma’am. The fire department’s up there now. They’ve got it shut off, but?—”
“Are they alive?” Matvei cuts in.
The porter’s eyes dart to the front doors, where another deputy is stomping snow off his boots. “Mrs. Oglethorpe is. They got to her in time. Mr. Oglethorpe…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. They were working on him a long time. I’m not supposed to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
He turns and leaves, still ashen.
I look at Matvei. “This wasn’t an accident, was it?” I whisper.
“No,” he says, shaking his head in dismay. “I don’t think it was.”
32
CASS
We don’t even bother with breakfast. No one is hungry. The Crispin staff, to their credit, has put together a continental spread in the morning room, row after row of fresh food underneath gleaming silver domes, but no one is eating.
The remaining partners stand around in clumps with their phones to their ears, mumbling things likeYes, I’m fineandNo, no ideaandChrist, Sandra, give me a minute.A red-eyed woman I don’t recognize is sobbing into a linen napkin in the corner. Susan’s chair at the head of the long table is empty, the place setting already cleared away by some highly efficient member of staff.
Matvei finds me by the window, hands me a paper cup of tea I won’t drink, and says, very low, “Pack your bag. We’re going.”
I don’t argue. We slip out a side door a few minutes later.
The drive back into the city takes forever. There’s been an accident on the Saw Mill. It’s no surprise, really, because the snow continues to come down, thicker and thicker. We end up sitting in traffic outside Hawthorne for forty-five minutes whilea Lexus on the shoulder smolders and a state trooper stares, perplexed.
Mat keeps one hand on the wheel and the other on my knee. Every so often his thumb sweeps once across my kneecap, like he’s reminding himself I’m still there, or reminding me.
“Talk to me, please,” I finally say somewhere around Yonkers.
“About what?”
“About what the fuck just happened. Are we going to die? Am I? You and I know damn well that no gas leak killed Bill.” I glance at him, shocked to find that my eyes are suddenly full of tears.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself from this whole insane chapter of my life, it’s that I’m not as callous and hardened as I always thought I was.
When Giana died, I figured that was it for me as far as feelings go. I’d be all rage, all the time, forever after. But it hasn’t been like that. Maybe it was for a while, and goodness knows I repressed tons of awful shit just to get through my pursuit and marriage of Raymond.
Now, though, Ifeelagain. I feel sadness and fear, anger and lust.
I know who’s responsible for helping ease me back into the world of the living: A Blue-Eyed Bastard who tried to tell me I wasn’t cut out for this.
In some ways, he was very wrong.
In some others, though, he was very, very right.
He pulls his hand off my knee for the first time in an hour, only to lift mine onto his thigh and keep it flat there, palm down,grounding me. That’s a good call on his part: It’s so soothing to touch something this real and immovable.
“Listen to me,” he says. “This wasn’t random. We both know that. But it also wasn’t aimed at us. Not yet. If it had been, we’d already be dead, you understand? They had the whole night. They picked Bill, though. I don’t know why, but I’ll figure it out, and then we’ll decide what to do about it. This can only end one way, Cass, and it’s the waywechoose. Okay?”
“I see why you’re good at your job,” I mumble. “You’re very reassuring when you lay things out like that.”
“It’s not lawyer-y bullshit,” he promises me. “It’s fucked-up what happened to Bill and Susan, but there might be a silver lining to it for us. Whatever Raymond is doing just got a hell of a lot more complicated. Which means he’s going to be busy this week. Distracted. Looking the wrong direction.”
“Which is good for us.”
Mat nods. “If we play our cards right, yes.’
