Chapter 20: Hem

"Nobody move, nobody wave, nobody look at the glass," Brandt said, in a voice so calm that it made me shiver.

"Why would we not look?" Zola whispered.

"Because whoever took that photo wants a reaction, and a reaction is a gift," Brandt said, stepping in front of the doors and speaking into a small radio on his collar. "Team two, the street, two o'clock, gray van, check it now."

Kade pulled me away from the window and walked me to the elevator with his hand flat against my back.

"Upstairs, all of us, now," Kade said.

In the penthouse, Kade pulled the curtains shut one by one, as if he were putting a house to bed.

"I am wearing a wedding dress in a hallway, and I have never felt less like a bride," I said.

"Take off the coat," Kade said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I have not seen it, I have been standing here trying not to ask, and I cannot do it anymore," Kade said.

I unbuttoned the gray coat and let it slide off my shoulders, and the cream fabric fell around me, soft and heavy, over the little curve of my stomach.

Zola pressed her lips together, and she grabbed Brandt's sleeve. "Brandt, come look at the ceiling with me, it is very interesting."

"Yes, Miss Zola, I find it fascinating," Brandt said, and the two of them walked out of the room, and I heard Zola whisper, "Say nothing, just breathe."

Kade did not say anything, and he did not move, and he stood there with his hands hanging at his sides and his eyes moving over me as if he were memorizing a map.

"Say something, please, you are scaring me," I said.

"I had a speech, I had a whole sentence ready, and I forgot all of it," Kade said, and his voice broke.

"Then say a bad sentence, I like those," I said.

"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I am a man who owns a lot of beautiful things, and none of them have ever made my hands shake," Kade said.

I looked down at my own hands, and they were shaking too.

"I thought nobody would ever look at me like that, I thought I was the girl you leave a cake for," I said.

"Who told you that?" Kade asked.

"Everyone, in different words, for twenty four years," I said, and my eyes filled.

"Then everyone was lying, and I would like to meet each one of them and ask them to look at you now," Kade said.

He stepped closer, and he lifted one hand, and he stopped it an inch from my cheek.

"May I?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

His palm settled against my face, warm and careful, and I closed my eyes and leaned into it, and I felt my whole body let go of something it had held for years.

"I am supposed to say rule three," Kade whispered.

"Then say it," I whispered back.

"I cannot, I have forgotten the number," Kade said, and his forehead touched mine, and his breath was uneven against my lips.

"Sir," Brandt said from the doorway, in a very careful voice, "I am so sorry, and I would rather be anywhere else, but I found something."

We sprang apart so fast that I stepped on my own hem.

"Where?" Kade asked, and he cleared his throat.

"In the lining of your gray jacket, the one you wore to the lawyer's office, it was in the collar seam," Brandt said, and he held out his big open palm.

On it lay a tiny black disc, no bigger than a button, with a thread of copper wire.

"A microphone," Kade said, very softly.

"Yes, sir, a good one, it picks up conversation at fifteen feet and sends it somewhere, so whoever is listening has heard everything you said while wearing it," Brandt said.

"That jacket hung in Pierce's hall closet for an hour, and before that it was at the cleaners, and before that on my own back," Kade said.

"Sir, I tested it, the glue is fresh, this went in this week," Brandt said.

"Which means it happened since the club, since Mina," Kade said slowly.

"Kade, I have been in your car, in your kitchen, in your hallway, everything I said, everything I whispered," I said, and my face went hot.

"I will say this once, they are not hearing any of it again, that jacket is going into the fireplace," Kade said.

"No, keep it, we can use it, whoever is listening thinks we are still talking in front of them, and we can feed them a lie," I said.

Kade looked at me, and a slow, proud smile broke across his face. "Zola said you were a menace, she undersold you."

"Zola!" I called.

Zola appeared in the doorway, still holding Brandt's sleeve. "I was not eavesdropping, I was admiring the crown molding, why are you all making that face?"

Brandt explained, and Zola dropped onto the sofa with her hand on her chest. "So the person who has been texting you has been hearing every word, even the kitchen toast, even the grape."

"Even the grape," I said, and I laughed, though it shook.

"I am sorry, I should have swept every room, I am supposed to protect you, and I did not even know," Kade said.

"You are not supposed to know about invisible microphones, you are not a magician," I said.

"I am a billionaire, I am supposed to be able to do everything," Kade said.

"You cannot, and thankfully, it would be very annoying," I said.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and the screen showed the unknown number, and my smile died.

"Do not read it, I will," Kade said, taking it, and he read it, and his jaw went tight.

"Say it," I said.

"Well done finding the jacket, Kade, now look at the hem of her dress," Kade read slowly.

We all looked down.

I gathered the cream skirt in both hands and knelt on the carpet with the fabric spread around me like spilled milk, and Brandt crouched beside me with a small pair of scissors from his pocket.

"Miss Hale, may I?" Brandt asked.

"Cut it, I do not care, it is only a dress," I said, and my voice cracked on the word only.

The scissors snipped along the inside seam, and the lining peeled back, and a tiny flat rectangle slid out into my palm, black and smooth, with one small green light blinking in the corner.

"A tracker," Zola whispered.

"It has been blinking since the boutique," Brandt said, "since the minute you put it on."

"Marguerite," I said, and my heart dropped, "she buttoned the coat, she gave us the back door."

"Or somebody else touched this dress before you did," Kade said, and a small paper tag fell out of the seam after it, stitched with the boutique's name.

On the back of the tag, in black ink, someone had written one word.

Saturday.

And as the four of us stared at it, the little green light stopped blinking, and turned solid red, and down in the street a car engine started.