Page 18 of Hidden

Which I fully plan to.

See, while my bosses doubted me from the start, I’ve spent countless hours walking these halls. Many times with Callie during the summer when it was too hot to play outside or too cold to do anything else.

I grew up here. Callie now works here and I’ve spent the last six months making sure I know every inch of the Penn Museum that I’d forgotten from childhood.

From the secret passages in the basement. To the best hiding places in the exhibits.

And I know that if I take a hard right, I can take the stairs to the upper floor and then the elevator to the security station.

I just have to get there. I just have to disappear.

Easier said than done.

Setting my juice aside, I turn to the closest couple vying for my attention.

“I’m so honored that you both could make it tonight.” I shake the hands of two of our biggest donors. The Ellenburgs. Old money. Hidden money. But they are always here and Angelagave them the special treatment. And by special treatment I mean shmoozing and sucking up.

“Well, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” the Mrs. says. I think her name is Judy.

Short white cropped hair fluffs around her shoulders and those calculating blue eyes roll over me.

Unluckily enough her husband speaks. Gerald, maybe. Could be Harold.

“We would love to steal two minutes of your time before the end of the evening,” he says, and there is something in his tone that pins my feet to the floor. Even though Leif and Enzo are clearly attempting to get through the crowd.

He isn’t getting far.

“Of course.” I glance at my watch. “Let’s meet back here in, say, an hour?”

“Oh perfect,” Judy purrs, tossing back her drink. “I do want to see where Mr. Dagon went.”

I agree. Perfect.

Biting my lip, I know I shouldn’t let the chaos demon out. But fuck it. They did something to Callie. And I need to know she’s okay.

She’s all I have left in this world. The only good thing that’s mine. That’s ours. She’d kill the witness for me. I swear if they?—

“You know.” I step close to Judy as Harold or Gerald watches me closely. “I hear he’s looking for a new venture.”

“Is he?” Harold beams. “Well, I have just the adventure for him.”

“Oh wonderful!” Judy beams. “We send you to Romania and him to the seas! Or reverse it.” She winks at me. “I prefer the sun.”

“What wonderful travels.” Gerald is moving through the crowd, his sight set on Leif.

But Judy remains for a moment, waiting for him to go. “You think he’s into older women?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

There are no words, not a single one for this cougar.

Actually, I do have the words. “I caught him looking at silver singles.”

That’s all it takes for her to turn around and disappear into the crowd behind her husband.

Now I’m not terribly tall. But with my heels? The goal was to intimidate every single person I come into contact with.

Now? I slip my shoes under a table and crouch just so and…