Page 176 of Gilt

“What’s gone?” I ask even as dread floods through me. I don’t wait for him to say it before I rush down the hall to Nathaniel West’s office.

The FBI had unsealed the room weeks ago, but I hadn’t bothered to come in here. Not even when I arrived to prepare for the party this morning. That had been Jonas’s job. I considered it remuneration for the emotional distress he caused me when he posted photos of me online.

The office is as Spartan as ever, but I ransack the drawers anyway. “Maybe a maid came along and put it away.”

“Emma, it’s not there,” he insists. “I checked.”

“Then where could it possibly be?” Stress seizes my chest, making me feel as though I’m in a chokehold. Without that file, we have nothing.

“As soon as I got here, I checked to make sure you’d left it where you were supposed to,” he explains. “But when I came back a few minutes ago, it was gone.”

“Did you get the picture? Did you post it?”

He shakes his head, and my heart sinks, drowning my hopes along with it. “Without the bait…”

“Emma,” Jonas says slowly, his brown eyes nearly black in the dark, “could someone have known it was here?”

“No. I didn’t tell anyone else.” Panic gets the better of me, and I kick the desk chair. Most of my suspects just walked out of the casino lobby, and, like it or not, none of them seemed capable of murder. They were all too caught up in their problems. “We’re missing something.”

I think for a moment before I hold out my hand. “Let me see your phone.”

Jonas unlocks the screen and hands it to me. He already has The Dealer account pulled up. So much for the best-laid plans. I scroll through, studying each picture.

“Why these people?” I ask him. There’d been dozens of party-goers there the night that Nathaniel was murdered, but Jonas had only focused his attention on a handful.

“Hunches. Weird behavior. Bias,” he admits.

As I look at the stream, I notice something that hadn’t occurred to me before. Naturally, I’d gravitated toward analyzing photos of myself and Jameson. People I didn’t trust were already suspects in my book. That left one person whose presence in the stream I’d hardly questioned.

“You said you wanted to deal out some karma.” It was a desire I understood. I’d been the victim of Monroe and her posse’s bullying, and I’d fallen prey to Hugo Roth’s playboy antics. That didn’t explain everyone who’d caught The Dealer’s attention. “What did Josie do to deserve such a prominent feature on your thread?”

“It’s not only about karma,” he says slowly. “I guess I wanted to expose what people try to keep hidden.”

So, he knew Josie’s secret, or one of them. He’d posted pictures of her with older men. Since he’d followed her to the family planning clinic, Jonas had probably guessed the other item Josie wanted to keep undercover.

“That wasn’t your right,” I say through gritted teeth. “Josie has issues…”

I feel like a turncoat for even speaking the words, but it’s the truth. I don’t understand how Jonas can’t see that. His own parents had rejected who he was. Josie didn’t even have a father to reject her.

“I wanted to figure out who killed Nathaniel West, so I couldn’t ignore her.”

“She was barely at the party.” I’m really losing my cool now.

Why? the tiny voice in my head asks, but I ignore it.

“I saw her late that night,” he corrects me. “Nearly everyone had gone home or passed out, but she was running. She looked totally wrecked. I tried to go after her, but Monroe stopped me. I knew you two hadn’t been invited, so I distracted Monroe so there wouldn’t be a scene.”

I can feel my heart slowing down as his words sink in. “Are you saying that Josie—”

“Knows who killed Nathaniel West?” he finishes my thought. “I’m sure she does.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

There’s no time to consider any of the questions flooding through me as I run out of the office. But despite telling myself there is a rational explanation, I can’t help but wonder how I’ve been so blind. Rushing into the party, I search for Josie’s red mask in the crowd. Following Monroe’s exit, the drinking has begun in earnest. More than a few champagne bottles lie empty on their sides, and as I stand there, I jump when more corks are popped. The hired waiters have given up in the face of mob mentality.

They’re celebrating Monroe’s overthrow. I don’t miss the irony that she provided the champagne they’re using to toast her demise. It will take all the West’s people to clean up this mess. I can only guess that Jameson is still addressing the debacle privately. But right now, I need him at my side.

I’ve fucked this up royally, and he’s the only person I trust to know what to do.