Page 179

She’s in her blazer, badge on her belt, moving with a slight laziness, though she’s very alert. The agent from the bar is on Griffin’s other side. The third agent—from the corner table—has the door.

Hopkins Avenue, in the Aspen afternoon, goes about its business because Aspen has seen everything, and the ratio of dramatic exits from its restaurants is higher than most places.

Griffin looks for me. He finds me.

Romy lets him look. She’s in no hurry. She stands beside him on the sidewalk with the expression of a woman giving a man exactly enough rope to fully understand his situation.

“Taya—” he starts.

“Mr. Cole,” Romy drawls. “You’re going to want to let that one go, sha.”

He glances at her—then back at me. He’s furious because he’s just understood that the woman he came to manage is the one managing him.

“Bitch! You set me up,” he yells.

I eat my bread.

“Now, see, that attitude”—Romy steers him toward the vehicle—“is exactly why I always say—don’t go to lunch with a woman smarter than you without checking for brooches first.”

She winks at me.

Griffin says something we can’t hear as Romy shoves him into the FBI car. She waves at us and gets into the passenger side of the vehicle, and right after, it pulls away.

The three of us stand on the sidewalk.

Kaz tucks his hands in his pockets. “She’s very good at her job.”

“She is,” I agree.

Mason stares at the half-baguette in my hand. “The bread?”

“They do it very well.” I sigh elaborately. “Well, they do everything well here. The steak was excellent. The Burgundy was wasted on his shirt.”

Mason takes my free hand. I let him.

“The Horseshoe?” Kaz says.

I nod. “The Horseshoe.”

We walk to Mason’s truck.

The canyon road picks up south of town, and the mountains close in on both sides. The afternoon light does what afternoon light does in Colorado in May, which is make everything look like it was always going to turn out this way.

I eat the last of the bread as I watch the road.

I feel, despite everything and because of everything, entirely like myself.

At the Horseshoe Diner with coffee, and while Mason eats a steak— because he didn’t eat a damn thing at Cache Cache because he wanted to fuck up Griffin, his words—Kaz debriefs us.

“We have the Senator’s name, the position offer, the explicit connection between Jessup’s office and the request to resolve the Whitman matter through your professional incentives.” He picks up a fry from Mason’s plate and chews on it. “That’s bribery of an officer of the court, obstruction of a pending legal proceeding, and the use of political office for private gain.”

“And Griffin?” I ask.

“Disbarment, minimum.” He says it with satisfaction. “Potentially criminal exposure depending on what his arrangement with Jessup’s office looks like in writing.” He winks at me. “You did well.”

“He touched my hand. Ugh!”

“The timing was perfect.” Kaz raises his hand, and I give him a high five. “You got everything you needed first.”