Chapter 6

You bow your head a moment. The effect is undermined a little because you can hear the caterer shouting something about plating the zucchini blossoms, and the bartenders are having a disagreement about which bitters they’re supposed to be using in the champagne cocktail.

Any deep thoughts about mortality are probably going to have to wait for a later time.

Next

So you see we need a replacement,” Charelle repeats.

There’s no time to bring someone in from outside—not now.


This gets you a tight, brief smile that doesn’t reach Charelle’s eyes. “You’ll need to do more vetting than that. Ms. Falter doesn’t want any repeats of the Scanlon incident.”

A TV producer called Timmy Scanlon spoke at a previous charity event against human trafficking. Less than twelve hours later, the news broke about a sex tape he’d made with an only-just-legal actress. All the websites that carried stories about that event naturally increased their click-throughs by headlining it with the sex-scandal connection. It wasn’t exactly the news they’d been hoping to make.

Never trust a grown man who calls himself Timmy, Ms. Falter said afterwards.


You may also like: