The sounds of a world that had nothing to do with Callaway Briggs or engagement parties or champagne colored dresses.
“Why?” She said. “He’ll explain that, too, when he sees you.” She thought about it.
She thought about the plate and the lab because she’d been thinking about the lab since yesterday afternoon, wondering if he’d had the food tested, wondering if anything had come of it.
She thought about Celestine’s voice through the wall. “Fire her.” “Make sure she doesn’t get work in this city again.”
She gave DeMarco her address and hung up. He arrived at 10:30, no driver, just himself, in a plain black car that was clearly expensive but had been chosen to look as unexceptional as possible.
He buzzed from the lobby. The elevator was not working. When he reached the third floor, his expression registered the hallway briefly and then settled back into neutral.
He was taller in person than she’d expected, though she wasn’t sure what she’d expected.
He wore a gray long-sleeve shirt and dark pants, no suit today, which felt deliberate.
His beard was neatly trimmed. The sharpness she’d noticed in his eyes at the party was still there, but it had a different quality here, in the dim hallway light, less composed, more direct.
“Thank you for seeing me,” he said. “I haven’t decided anything yet,” she told him.
“Come in.” She’d straightened the apartment, which she wasn’t happy with herself about. It was still clearly the apartment of someone who was managing rather than thriving, the patched couch, the second-hand table, the mismatched kitchen chairs, but it was clean and the windows were open and the morning light did what it could with what it had to work with.
She made coffee because her mother had raised her to make coffee for guests and some things were too deep to override.
She set two cups on the table and sat across from him. He wrapped both hands around the mug and didn’t drink.
“The food was tested,” he said. She nodded slowly. “Zolpidem.” “High concentration.” He said it flatly, the way people say things they’ve had time to process and have chosen to present without effect.
“I watched the security footage. I saw what you saw.” The kitchen was quiet except for the distant thrum of the bus route.
“I’m sorry,” Imani said. And she meant it, not for what she’d done but for what he was sitting with.
Being lied to by someone you’d chosen had a particular weight to it. She’d watched her mother carry that weight for years.
“I’m sorry you’re dealing with that.” Something shifted in his expression, almost imperceptibly. He hadn’t been expecting the apology or maybe he hadn’t been expecting it in that form, the version that addressed him rather than the situation.
“I came to offer you a position,” he said. She set her coffee down. “I’m listening.”
“Temporary.” “On my household staff.” “Legitimate work.” “I’ll pay three times your current day rate.”
He looked at her directly. “I need someone on the inside who sees things. You’ve demonstrated you’re capable of that.”
“You want me to spy on your fiance?” He didn’t flinch at the word. “I want someone who pays attention.”
Imani looked at him. She thought about what this would mean, being inside that estate, being close to Celestine Harrow, being the kind of invisible that might become visible if Celestine decided to look.
She thought about what Celestine had said through the wall. She thought about what a woman who would drug her own fiance’s food might do to a south side cleaning temp who’d gotten in her way.
“No,” she said. Callaway nodded once, not surprised, not arguing. He wrapped his hands around the mug again.
“All right,” he said. He didn’t move to leave. Imani looked at him. “You’re still sitting there.”
“You haven’t asked me what I’ll do instead.” “That’s your business.” “It will involve lawyers and a very long, very public process,” he said.
“And until it’s finished, Celestine stays where she is. Access to the estate, access to my staff, access to” He stopped.
“She’s been my fiance for eight months. She knows where everything is.” Imani understood what he was saying without him saying it.
“And you need someone she doesn’t think to watch,” Imani said. He said nothing, which was an answer.
