Page 74 of Boardroom Ties
It’s strange to see someone I saw so recently and still feel the pang in my chest like we’ve been separated for decades. Long-lost lovers, only without the love. But thatfeelingwas so real.
I saw Mat in the lobby, looking at me without actually looking, and my heart double-clutched with the sweetest pain. I’ve thought of him every day since the encounter in the park. All I’ve had to do is close my eyes and there he is, on his knees in the freezing stone tunnel, my coat draped over his head like the roof of a cathedral while he worshipped me and made me see angels.
The cold of the stone at my back… the heat of his mouth… the stillness of his presence when he stayed there afterwards, cheek to my belly, eyes closed, like he was listening for something only he could hear.
I press a hand to my stomach now. Through the cashmere, I can almost convince myself there’s a flutter, even though I know it’s too early for that. It takes until weeks sixteen or so before it’s detectable. I’m a long way from that. Whatever I’m feeling is just the chicken.
Still, I can pretend. It’s not like lying to myself is new for me. I’ve been doing that for a long, long time.
Hi, you,I think.We’re getting close.
It could happen this weekend. It could really, truly happen. The end of this nightmare.
I keep waiting to wake up. That’s the part nobody warns you about when you set out to plot a murder: the disbelief. I’ve been steering toward Raymond’s death for five years now, since the day the funeral director told me they couldn’t open the casket.
All my many steps and missteps along the way seem so distant and irrelevant now. Cyanide pills and fifty grand in cash, a dingy bar and a dark back alley… The whole time, I doubted.This isn’t going to happen. You were stupid to think it ever could.
But now, it might. It actually fuckingmight.
Giana would laugh if she could see me right now. She’d take one look at the four-poster bed and the silver dome over the chicken and she’d say something like,Well, look at you, fancy girl! Living the dream, are we?She had a way of saying things that made you feel stupid and loved at the same time. Things like…
“Birthday gift for the princess!” She strode into my dorm room and dropped a thick envelope on my lap.
I looked at it stupidly, then up at her. “It’s not my birthday, doofus. You’re my sister. Shouldn’t you know that?”
She shrugged. “Easy there, sourpuss. Call it a late Christmas present, then. Or early Valentine’s Day. Or— Look, just say thanks and tell me I’m the best sister ever and you’d wither and die without me, mmkay?”
I grinned reluctantly.“Thanks, Gi. You’re the best sister ever and I’d wither and die without…”
The words dried up in my mouth as I shook out the envelope’s contents and realized just how much there was. Five grand in crisp new twenties, easily. The banded stack was thick enough that I had to thumb the corner twice before I believed it was real.
“Giana…”
“Mhm?”
“What the hell is this?”
She flopped onto my twin XL, kicked off her boots, and stretched like the lazy cat she’d always been. “What does it look like? That’s tuition, baby. Books. Ramen. Lingerie. Whatever itis that you fancy pants college girls spend on. I noticed last time I was here that you had a fridge full of nothing but mustard and a Brita filter, and I thought, ‘That’s not the kind of girl I raised.’”
“Thatyouraised?” I asked incredulously.
She popped open an eye to regard me. “Didn’t I?”
I sat up, the envelope heavy on my knee. “Gi, c’mon. Be serious. Where did you get this?”
“Work, dummy. Where do you think?”
“What kind of work pays enough that you can just give this away?”
“The kind of work I do.” She wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was studiously picking at a hangnail that didn’t exist. “The kind that pays.”
“In cash? In a brick of freaking twenties? I’m serious, Giana?—”
She held up a hand. “Don’t start. I have a headache already.”
“Yeah, well, tough titty. I’m starting.”
She sat up. Her hair was longer than usual and she had it half-up, half-down with a calico butterfly clip. I’d always loved her hair. Long and auburn, with a slight curl to it, just enough to look wild and free. “Shut up and take the money, will you please?”
