Lena had folded the green dress badly.
It lay across the open case with one sleeve trapped beneath a pair of shoes. Cal recognized the dress before he saw her. She stood at the mirror wearing trousers and a white shirt, trying to fasten a necklace at the back of her neck.
“Do this,” she said.
He shut the door. It was her room, above the garden, a long way from 604. Somebody had put fruit on a table and taken none of yesterday's fruit away. The wedding dress hung from a rail near the bed, empty and larger than it had looked with her inside it.
She lifted her hair. Cal stood behind her and found the clasp. It was small enough to make his fingers clumsy. In the mirror he could see her watching him try.
“Not that bit. The other—”
“I've got it.”
He hadn't. She held still until he did.
When the clasp caught, he let his hands rest a second too long against the back of her neck. She lowered her hair over them instead of moving away.
“Thank you. Get that sleeve out.”
He went to the case. She was on the phone now, asking for the car she'd arranged. Out front. She would be down in a few minutes. She ended the call and took the little bottles from the dressing table, putting them in a clear bag.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere we can eat. Not here.”
“Adrian?”
“He wants to speak to people. Make something proper out of everything they're saying.” She tried the case lid. “Hold this down.”
Cal pressed it. The sleeve was clear, but something beneath the clothes stopped the lid closing. Lena pushed her hand under the green dress and pulled out a stiff blue folder. SHORE, in pale letters over water. She set it on the bed and tried the lid again.
Cal let go of it.
“I need you to hold it,” she said.
He had picked up the folder. The beach photograph from the family loop came back to him: Felix with his arm around her, the banner behind them.
“Partner distribution,” he said. “Not a wedding present.”
Lena watched him open it. Clean streets, low white buildings, people in a pool. A few photographs were real. Others had the soft edges of things nobody had yet built.
She reached for the folder. He turned it away from her and found two unfinished concrete frames at the edge of a road.
“Is that what people got?”
“Some got that. Some got less.”
She put the bag of bottles in the case and pressed it flat with her forearm. “We sold it before we built it. Then we sold more. There was always going to be another deal to finish the first one.”
“Did they know?”
“No.” She pulled the zip around one corner. It stuck. “Felix could make them think they'd had a wonderful conversation. Afterwards he'd tell me exactly what they were frightened of. Give me that.”
Cal held the folder open instead. The pool was good. He could have waited beside it all afternoon for a person to come into the frame. It didn't exist.
“And Adrian?”
“The next deal.”
She pulled the folder from him and slid it down the side of the case. The zip went past it this time. He held the lid while she finished.
A knock at the door made both of them look up. Lena opened it a little way. A hotel employee gave her a car key and said it was waiting out front. She thanked him, shut the door and put the key in Cal's hand.
“You drive. I'll tell you where when we're out.”
He closed his fingers around it.
“You and Felix picked him.”
“We went to him for money. Then I wanted to go back when we didn't need another meeting. I wanted to hear about his day.” She looked at the closed case. “Felix kept asking what I was getting. As if I was going to tell him I'd got enough.”
“He wanted his share.”
“He wanted to be beside me. At the table. In every room Adrian opened.”
“You could have told Adrian.”
She put one hand on the case handle. “I could have.”
“You could have left.”
“I didn't want to leave him. I wanted the work to be real. I wanted to keep what I had.”
She looked toward the wedding dress. Cal stood with the key pressing into his palm. His phone began ringing. Quinn. He looked at the name, silenced it and slipped it back into his pocket.
Lena came to him. Her wrist showed where the sleeve had moved, the pulled patch of skin duller now. He touched it. She let him.
“You didn't ask me to pretend I was somebody else,” she said.
“I asked you for money.”
“I remember.”
She kissed him before he could make anything else of it. A brief kiss, close and warm. He put his hand against her shoulder and felt her breathe. She smelled of the soap at the back of her neck where his fingers had been. When she moved away he followed a little, and she stayed until he'd stopped.
“Take the case,” she said.
He lifted it off the bed. It was heavier than he expected. She pulled the handle up for him and he let its wheels settle on the floor. A car was waiting for him downstairs. He could put her case in it, put his own bag beside it. He had never taken a picture of her outside this hotel.
Lena gathered her small bag, checked the dressing table and went to the door.
“What about Adrian?” Cal asked.
Her hand stayed on the handle.
“He did something.”
Cal waited.
“He said Gideon wouldn't ask me for anything again. Last night. When he came back.”
She pressed her lips together. He saw something disturbingly close to wonder move through her face. Then she opened the door and looked down the corridor.
“Come on.”
Cal brought the case as far as the threshold. She stood on the other side, holding the door for him.
“I need to get Juno away from him.”
“Call her.”
“He was in 604 after me. I left A in the bag, running. On purpose.”
Lena let the door move toward them. Cal put his foot against it, keeping the case out of its path.
“You recorded him?”
“Juno collected the bag after he left. She has the whole interval. Gideon alive when I go. Adrian coming in. They go into the bedroom. He comes out alone.”
“Does Adrian know?”
“Not from me.”
She looked toward the elevator. A porter had left a cart against the wall, piled with the flowers nobody had wanted in the ballroom. Cal moved the case to give her room to come beside him.
“I've given a copy to the police,” he said. “She has the source. She knows about Adrian.”
Lena didn't come through. She turned back into the room.
“What is she going to do?”
“Give them the inventory. At the marina shore office. She's arranging it. I need to find out when.”
Lena held out her hand.
He looked at it, then at the key he was still carrying.
“I'll need that,” she said.
He opened his fingers. She took the key and folded it inside her hand, then caught the case handle above his. He let go. She rolled it past him, back into the room, and put it upright beside the bed.
“I need to speak to Adrian.”
“He knows what he did.”
“I'm going to speak to him.”
Cal remained in the doorway. She had put her small bag down beside the case. The wedding dress hung between them and the window, one arm of the hanger tilted under its weight.
“Will you help me get her away?” he asked.
“Find out what she's doing.”
“You've got the car.”
“Find out.”
He could have stayed there until she gave him a different answer. Lena took her phone out. He moved his foot, and the door came against his hand. She waited for him to take that away too.