Please.

I will pay you anything you want.

Name it.”

I went still.

I looked at her hand on my arm, and then at her face, and I said it quietly, so that only she could hear the full weight of it.

“So you knew.”

She tried to steer me toward the side doors of the estate, away from the crowd, but Juniper had my other hand and would not be moved, and there were already a dozen phones up around the lawn, recording.

There was no quiet exit left.