# THOMPSON-HAYES: BLOOD MONEY
## Chapter Twenty-One — The Dinner Mia Didn't Expect
Sarah came to Austin on a Friday.
She did not announce it far in advance — a text Thursday night: *I'm coming tomorrow. I'm bringing someone. Don't make plans.* Which was Sarah's version of a formal invitation and which Mia had learned long ago not to argue with.
She arrived at noon in the good coat she wore when she was trying to make an impression, which told Mia something before she saw who was beside her.
The man beside her was named Derrick. He was a history teacher — she found this out in the first four minutes — with the kind of quiet attentiveness that Mia recognized as the specific quality of people who spent their professional lives listening carefully to other people and had internalized it a
