The man blocking Elara Quinn’s path smelled of bourbon, expensive cologne, and the confidence of someone who had never been punished for making a woman uncomfortable.
“You’ve been avoiding me all evening,” Everett Sloan said.
“I’ve been working.”
Elara shifted the silver clutch beneath her arm and looked past him toward the crowded museum gallery. Hundreds of guests moved beneath suspended glass sculptures, their formal clothes shimmering in the blue light reflected from San Francisco Bay.
The Winter Meridian Gala was supposed to finance restoration projects, youth art programs, and emergency housing for families displaced by coastal flooding. At least, that was what the invitations claimed.
Elara had spent the previous six weeks studying the foundation’s accounts.
The numbers told a different story.
Everett placed one hand against the wall beside her head.
“The audit can wait.”
“No, it cannot.”
“You accountants always act as though numbers are more important than people.”
“Numbers reveal what people are trying to hide.”
His smile became brittle.
Everett Sloan was the foundation’s youngest board member, the son of a shipping magnate, and a client Elara’s employer had repeatedly instructed her not to offend. His photograph appeared in society magazines beside racehorses, actresses, and yachts he did not know how to sail.
Earlier that evening, he had arrived sober.
Now his bow tie hung loose, his eyes were unfocused, and he had followed Elara through two galleries despite being told to leave her alone.
“You think you’re too good for everyone here,” he said.
“I think you should step away.”
“Conrad says you’ve become difficult.”
Conrad Bell was the managing partner at Elara’s forensic accounting firm. He was also the person who had ordered her to ignore nearly six million dollars in payments to contractors that appeared to exist only on paper.
The mention of his name made her grip tighten around the clutch.
“Did Conrad send you to speak with me?”
Everett laughed.
It was not an answer.
Music drifted from the central atrium. A string quartet played beneath the enormous skeleton of a blue whale, while waiters circulated with crystal glasses of champagne.
They were less than thirty yards from a room filled with donors, politicians, executives, and journalists.
Yet the narrow gallery felt sealed away from the rest of the museum.
Everett leaned closer.
“You’re going to give me your private report.”
“No.”
“You’ll give it to Conrad, and Conrad will decide what matters.”
“I already know what matters.”
“You have no idea what you found.”
Elara’s heartbeat changed.
Everett was drunk, but his words were suddenly too precise.
“What did I find?”
His gaze dropped toward her clutch.
She had placed an encrypted memory card inside the lining ten minutes before leaving her office. It contained transaction reports, vendor registrations, customs declarations, and a series of coded payments that seemed to predict accidents at Calder Maritime terminals.
Elara had not told anyone she had copied the files.
Everett should not have known she was carrying anything.
He reached for the clutch.
She moved it behind her back.
“Give it to me.”
“Get away from me.”
His fingers closed around her wrist.
Elara pulled free and stepped into the adjoining corridor. It led toward a private reception room reserved for the gala’s wealthiest guests.
Two security men stood near the far entrance.
Between them was a stranger dressed in black.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and completely still, as though the noise and movement of the gala belonged to a different world. He wore no mask, no visible jewelry, and no expression that invited conversation.
One of the guards spoke quietly to him.
The stranger answered without looking away from Elara.
She did not recognize him.
But Everett did.
The color drained from his face.
“Come back here,” Everett whispered.
The stranger watched them approach.
Elara understood three things at once.
Everett was afraid of him.
The security men obeyed him.
And he was the only person in the corridor who looked powerful enough to make Everett stop.
Elara walked directly to him.
“Forgive me,” she said.
The stranger’s dark eyes narrowed.
“For what?”
She took hold of his jacket, rose onto her toes, and kissed him.
For a fraction of a second, he remained motionless.
Then one hand settled against her waist.
It was not a romantic kiss. It was a desperate decision made by a woman who had run out of respectable ways to protect herself.
Yet the stranger responded with unnerving composure, turning his body so that Elara stood partly shielded behind him.
When she stepped away, Everett was staring at them.
The stranger glanced at Elara’s swollen wrist.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
His voice was low and controlled.