Chapter 2: The Morning After The Auction

Sloane

I told myself I was not going to look him up again.

I had looked him up once in the cab on the way home. Three search results. That was enough. That was more than enough actually. I was a professional adult woman who had lost a charity auction for a Maine vacation rental and that was the full extent of what had happened and there was absolutely no reason to spend any further time thinking about it.

I looked him up four more times before midnight.

Not because I was interested. Because I was thorough. Thoroughness was a professional trait. It had nothing to do with the way he had looked at me across the room or the thing at the corner of his mouth that was more complicated than a smile.

Beckett Rowe. Thirty two. CEO of Rowe Industries. Private equity real estate technology infrastructure. Worth more than I was comfortable calculating. Notoriously private. The kind of man whose name appeared in financial coverage regularly and in personal coverage almost never.

One photograph kept coming up.

Outside what looked like a courthouse. Dark suit. No tie. Looking at something off camera with an expression that gave away absolutely nothing.

I had seen that expression in person tonight.

It gave away slightly more in person than in photographs.

Not much.

But slightly.

I put my phone face down at eleven forty seven and went to sleep and did not think about it at all.

Dara called at eight the next morning.

I was at my desk. Coffee going cold beside me the way it always did. Case files open. Saturday morning which meant nothing to my schedule because my schedule did not observe weekends with any particular reverence.

"You looked him up," she said instead of hello.

"Good morning Dara," I said.

"How many times," she said.

"Once," I said.

Silence.

"Fine," I said. "Five times."

"Sloane."

"I was being thorough," I said. "It is a professional instinct."

"You looked up a man you met at a charity auction five times before midnight because of professional instinct," she said.

"I did not meet him," I said. "We bid against each other. That is not meeting."

"You made eye contact across a room for an extended period," she said. "For most people that qualifies as meeting."

"Most people are not me," I said.

"No," she said. "Most people are not. Most people would have just let the man win the auction and gone home." A pause. "You bid against him to nine thousand five hundred dollars for a Maine vacation you had not planned to take."

I looked at my case file.

"The kitchen faced the ocean," I said.

"Sloane."

"It was a very good kitchen," I said.

She was quiet for a moment.

The specific quiet of Dara organizing her thoughts into the most effective possible order.

"Tell me what you actually thought of him," she said. "Not the professional assessment. The actual thought."

I looked at the city through my window.

At the Saturday morning version of it. Slower. More forgiving.

"He was not what I expected," I said finally.

"What did you expect," she said.

"Someone who looked like he knew he had won before the bidding started," I said. "Someone who wore the money visibly." I paused. "He did not look like any of those things."

"What did he look like," she said.

I thought about the dark suit and the no tie and the expression that gave away nothing except for the one thing at the corner of his mouth.

"Like someone who had decided a long time ago that the world did not get to know what he was thinking," I said. "And had been so consistent about it that it had become just how his face worked."

Dara was quiet for a moment.

"That is a very specific observation," she said carefully. "For someone you did not meet."

"I am an attorney," I said. "I read people."

"You read him," she said.

"Partially," I said. "He was harder to read than most."

"And that interested you," she said.

I picked up my cold coffee.

"I am going back to work," I said.

"Of course you are," she said. In the tone that meant she had gotten what she came for and was satisfied with it.

We hung up.

I sat at my desk and did not think about Beckett Rowe or the way he had looked at me across the room or the fact that he had won a Maine vacation rental with a kitchen facing the ocean that I had very specifically wanted.

I thought about my case files.

Thoroughly and professionally and with complete focus.

For approximately four minutes.

Then my phone rang.

Unknown number.

I almost did not answer.

I answered because I had a documented history of unknown numbers turning out to be things that mattered and I had apparently not learned to ignore them.

"Ms. Mercer," said a voice I recognized immediately.

Low. Even. Completely controlled.

I sat very still at my desk.

"Mr. Rowe," I said.

A pause.

"You know who I am," he said.

"You won an auction last night," I said. "Your name was on the board by the door."

"Yes," he said. "It was."

Another pause.

Not uncomfortable. Just weighted. The pause of someone who had called with a specific purpose and was taking his time getting to it.

"I would like to meet with you," he said. "Professionally. There is a matter I would like to discuss."

I looked at my case files.

At the Saturday morning city outside my window.

At my cold coffee.

"What kind of matter," I said.

"The kind that requires a face to face conversation," he said. "Not a phone call."

"That is not very specific Mr. Rowe," I said.

"No," he said. "It is not."

"And you are calling me on a Saturday morning," I said. "Which suggests either the matter is urgent or you are someone who does not observe weekends with any particular reverence."

A pause.

"Both," he said.

I almost smiled.

Almost.

"Monday," I said. "My office. Nine AM."

"I will send my assistant your details," he said.

"I will send mine yours," I said.

We hung up.

I sat at my desk for a long moment.

Then I called Dara back.

She answered before the first ring finished.

"He called you," she said.

"How," I said.

"Because you have the look," she said.

"I am on the phone," I said. "You cannot see my face."

"Sloane," she said. "He called you."

I looked at my cold coffee.

"Monday," I said. "Nine AM. My office."

The sound Dara made was not professional.

"It is a professional meeting," I said.

"Of course it is," she said.

"Dara."

"Completely professional," she said. "Absolutely."

I hung up.

Picked up my case file.

Put it down.

Picked up my phone.

Opened the search results for Beckett Rowe that I had not closed from last night.

Read them a sixth time.

Put my phone down.

Told myself this was the last time.

It was not the last time.