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Celeste will explain how he survived it.

She doesn’t need to be alive to agree with the explanation.

Daniel asks what I want done with her.

I tell him.

It takes less than twenty seconds.

He makes a call.

By 10:15 a.m., my office is considerably less crowded.

Genevieve arrives at 10:37 a.m. without knocking.

She stops inside the doorway and studies the room. Her eyes go immediately to the untouched glass beside the chair.

“You had company.”

“I did.”

“Celeste?”

“Yes.”

Genevieve closes the door behind her.

“Where is she?”

“Gone.”

She understands the word correctly.

“Philip.”

My name sounds different in her mouth when she is annoyed with me.

Genevieve crosses the room and takes the drink beside my hand without asking. She tastes it, decides it is acceptable, and keeps it.

I have known her long enough to stop expecting my possessions to remain entirely mine when she is present.

“The champagne that girl drank,” I say. “You had a hand in that.”

Her hand pauses with the glass halfway to her mouth.

Only briefly.

Then she drinks.

“Celeste told you that?”

“I had assumed it was her.”

Genevieve sets the glass down.

She knows what comes next.

I give it to her anyway.