When Angel excused herself to freshen up, Conley turned to me fully. There was a hush that made everything sharper. He reached across the table and squeezed my hand then leaned down and spoke close to my ear.
“I’ll be away for the weekend,” he said, the words forming a small knot of panic in my chest long before I could think them through. “Court sessions pushed out—travel required.”
It was normal for his work, the machinery of influence sometimes demanded presence elsewhere. But the truth behind the sentence—the absence—was a vulnerability I didn’t relish. “Where?” I asked, though I already knew the likely answers: a conference, a trial, or a meeting that would take him into rooms where I would not be.
“Berlin,” he said. “An arbitration panel. I should be back Monday.”
Berlin. The cit
