Claimed as the Wrong Bride

Chapter 10 Part 3: First Catch

Rook had positioned himself on the opposite side of Crane Street with a direct sightline to both the alley exit and the street, which was the correct position for someone who had been told to observe rather than intercept. He had watched Bastien come out of the front entrance of The Meridian and walk around to the alley exit with the patience of someone who had thought carefully about which exit she was using. He had watched the conversation play out on Crane Street, the specific quality of Occy's posture, the specific quality of Bastien's, which were very different from each other and interesting in their difference.

He had watched her walk into a group of bar patrons and disappear.

He had watched Bastien stand on the pavement looking at the space where she had been.

He pressed his lips together very firmly.

He maintained this for approximately four seconds.

Then he took out his phone, because Adler was going to want to know, and because if Rook was going to document this situation accurately the documentation was going to require more than professional language could comfortably contain.

He typed: She walked into a crowd. Gone in approximately three seconds. Bastien is currently standing on Crane Street looking thoughtful.

He looked at the message.

He added: She's very small. I think this is a structural advantage we failed to account for.

He sent it and put his phone away and crossed the street.

Bastien was still looking at the space where the crowd had been.

"She went left at the junction," Rook said, which was a guess based on the direction she had been moving and her likely route, but it was an educated guess and by the time they reached the junction it would be confirmed or it wouldn't be.

"I know which way she went," Bastien said.

Rook waited.

"She's going to be cold," Bastien said. "She doesn't have a hat."

Rook looked at him. Bastien was looking at the junction with an expression that Rook did not yet have a name for but intended to develop one for because he had a strong professional instinct that he was going to need it frequently.

"Do you want me to—"

"No." Bastien turned up his collar against the cold and started walking. "Come on."

Rook fell into step beside him and said nothing, which was the appropriate contribution, and thought several things that he also did not say, which was a personal best for the evening.

Adler's reply came through as they reached the junction.

It said: Structural advantage.

Then, after a pause: I need you to start keeping notes.

He had gone into The Meridian to locate her and he had located her immediately, which was straightforward, and then he had stayed for forty-five minutes, which was not.

The stage version of her was something he had not fully accounted for. He had read the file. He had known she performed at the club. He had formed a general understanding of what that meant without forming a specific one, and the specific one was considerably more than the general one had prepared him for.

She moved differently on that stage than she moved anywhere else. Not differently in the sense of being someone else, it was unmistakably her, the same quality of attention, the same economy of movement, the same specific precision he had watched applied to everything from a conversation about adhesive to a gallery courtyard wall. But amplified. Turned outward toward the room in a way that made the room feel like it was receiving something.

He had watched her climb the pole with the clean unhurried strength of someone for whom the movement was as natural as walking and he had thought about a fire escape and a third-floor crossover walkway and understood, with the specific clarity of a man connecting two pieces of information that should have been connected earlier, that those were the same body. The same strength. The same absolute absence of hesitation once she had decided to move.

He had also thought several things that were less professionally relevant and which he had filed under a category he was still in the process of naming.

The touching had been the problem.

He understood the rules of the venue. He had read about the practice before going, because he prepared for things, and he understood that the bill-tucking was permitted and structured and had specific limits. He understood it intellectually with complete clarity.

He had watched a man in the third row reach up and tuck a bill into her garter strap and feel the inside of her thigh in the process, brief and within the rules, and had experienced a response that was not intellectual at all.

He had not moved. He did not move on impulse. But he had filed the response and examined it with the same careful attention he examined everything that was new and found it to be something he did not have a clean name for yet.

She was his wife.

He was aware that the marriage had not been chosen. He was aware that she was currently treating it as an outrage to be managed and that her position on the matter was entirely understandable given the circumstances. He was aware of all of this with complete clarity.

He was also aware that watching another man's hand on her thigh, even briefly, even within the rules, had produced something in his chest that was going to require examination.

He turned up his collar and kept walking.

Rook, beside him, said nothing. Rook had been saying nothing for several blocks now, which was unprecedented and which Bastien suspected was costing him considerable effort.

He did not ask Rook what he was not saying.

He already knew.