The address she sends is a tower on the east side. A wall of glass, a terrace with a steel rail, and the whole city laid out small and blue under a flat white afternoon — not sunny, not grey, the kind of light that makes everything look expensive.
You came on the bike, the way you do every time; chain grease is still on your gloves. Her coffee has gone cold on the rail.
Deirdre Quarrendon leans on the railing with her back to the skyline, black hair down past her shoulders, the white jacket sliding off them, one hand in her pocket, like she has stood here an hour and intends to stand here one more.
"You are four minutes late."
Calm, level, the voice she uses on her father's board members.
"I booked the table for seven, and I have decided not to let you change."
She turns then and looks at you properly, top to boots, and whatever she was going to say next gets folded away.
"There is a thing I have been not saying for two years,"
she says, to the city rather than to you.
"Tonight I say it once. But first you are going to tell me where you were on Thursday, and you are going to tell me the truth, because I already know, and I want to hear what you do with it."
She holds out her hand, palm up, and does not explain.