“I’m working on it.”
“Work faster. I’m not running a protective detail at a wedding venue I haven’t walked.”
“Understood.”
Eamon walked Cabot through the café staging in the next ten minutes. I would ride with Collins. Cabot would arrive separately with Reed. There would be fifteen minutes between our arrivals.
Eamon left by the side door.
The rain that had been threatening all afternoon finally arrived. It was steady and fine, the kind that turned Brookline’s streetlights into halos and made the pavement shine.
I went upstairs.
The office at the end of the hall was empty. Wiley had gathered and stacked his printouts. The desk lamp was on low, and the laptops were docked.
I pulled the venue schematics from the folder I’d been building since the consultant left and spread them across the desk. I had her materials plus a satellite image Eamon had sent from Michael’s work in Seattle. It showed the property from above, with the main house and the event hall set perpendicular to each other, and the slate terrace stepping down to dune grass and then to the beach.
I’d marked the event hall in red and the glass corridor in orange. The catering vestibule and the terrace doors in blue and green.
The marks were clinical on the page. They were more personal in my head. Maria would be somewhere in the orange corridor with a tray. Eleanor would be in the front row, the way Cabot had said she’d be, smiling at the bride.
I was building an evacuation plan with timing. I was also building casualty maps.
I heard Farrow on the stairs before I saw him.
He stopped in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the frame.
“You’ve been up here for forty minutes. Reed thinks you’re sleeping.”
“Reed thinks what I told him to think.”
Farrow pushed off the frame and crossed to the desk. He looked over the colored markings but didn’t touch the pages.
“You still think Henry’s usable,” I said.
Farrow looked at me.
“I think he’s the only person who can tell us how soon that device goes in and who walks it through the catering vestibule. Whether he tells Cabot any of that on Thursday is a different question.”
“You don’t sound confident.”
“I’m not in the business of building your confidence. You’d see through it.”
I looked at Farrow. He placed one hand on the desk, leaning slightly forward. I reached over and placed my hand on his.
He didn’t move. “Dane,” he said. “This won’t solve itself right now. Get some sleep tonight if you can.”
“Are you planning to?”
He didn’t answer. I pulled my hand back, and he stood upright.
Farrow squeezed my right shoulder before he headed back down the stairs.
I stood at the desk for another minute. Then I gathered the schematics, squared the pages, put them in the folder, and turned off the lamp.
Chapter sixteen
Farrow