Chapter 1 - The Friday Dinner
Briar Lane snapped the leather notebook shut and whispered, “Don’t ask me about that page.”
Garrison Halloran stepped from the bar and noticed the corner of a folded Harbor Freight receipt sticking from its cover.
A number had been written across the back.
Garrison stopped moving.
This was not about a dinner date.
Briar looked across the table at Ethan Mercer and tried to pretend she had not just felt the entire room change.
The restaurant was crowded enough to give most people privacy.
Not Garrison Halloran.
Privacy seemed to bend around him.
People noticed him without appearing to look.
Servers gave him extra space.
A bartender who had been laughing thirty seconds earlier now polished the same glass three times.
Garrison stood beside the dark mirrored wall near the bar, one hand resting beside an untouched whiskey, his black shirt open at the throat beneath his fitted jacket.
He wasn't staring at Ethan anymore.
He was staring at the notebook.
Briar slipped it toward her handbag.
Too late.
Ethan leaned back slightly.
“Someone you know?”
Briar forced a smile.
“My boss.”
Ethan glanced over his shoulder.
“That’s your boss?”
“Yes.”
“The one you said doesn’t smile?”
“I never said that.”
“You said he looks at conference rooms like they personally disappointed him.”
Despite herself, Briar almost laughed.
Almost.
Then Garrison moved.
He did not storm over.
That would have been easier.
Garrison never stormed.
He approached with the quiet certainty of a man who expected doors to open before he touched them.
Briar watched him cross the restaurant.
Her pulse climbed.
Eleven months.
She had spent eleven months working four offices away from him.
Eleven months watching him enter elevators, board cars, take calls, cancel meetings, and occasionally stand at the windows of Halloran Holdings with his hands in his pockets as if Boston itself owed him an answer.
And for eleven months, she had wondered whether he knew.
Sometimes she thought he did.
Sometimes she caught him studying her handwriting on a meeting agenda.
Sometimes she found him unexpectedly near the records room when she worked late.
Sometimes a driver from his security team happened to be outside when she left after dark.
Coincidence, she'd told herself.
Then there had been the coffee shop.
The train platform.
The charity auction.
Three places where she had looked up and found one of Halloran's security men nearby.
Never close enough to confront.
Never threatening.
Just there.
Watching.
Briar had convinced herself she was being paranoid.
Tonight destroyed that illusion.
Garrison stopped at the table.
“Briar.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
She looked up.
“Mr. Halloran.”
“You can call me Garrison when I'm standing in a restaurant at nine o'clock on a Friday.”
Ethan rose politely.
“Ethan Mercer.”
Garrison looked at the hand Ethan offered.
Then shook it.
“Garrison Halloran.”
“I know.”
The smallest pause followed.
Garrison's eyes sharpened.
Briar noticed.
Ethan noticed too.
Nobody said anything about it.
Garrison turned to her.
“You left something visible.”
Briar's fingers closed around the notebook.
“No, I didn't.”
His gaze dropped to her hand.
“Locker 317.”
Her stomach tightened.
Ethan looked between them.
“What is locker 317?”
“Nothing,” Briar said.
Garrison answered at the same time.
“Something that nearly got me killed.”
The restaurant seemed to become quieter even though nothing around them actually changed.
Briar looked at him.
“Not here.”
“So you do know.”
“I said not here.”
Ethan slowly sat again.
“I feel like I've missed a chapter.”
Garrison looked at him.
“Several.”
“Garrison.”
The use of his first name made him turn back immediately.
Briar hated that she noticed.
She hated even more that Ethan noticed.
Garrison's expression softened by a degree.
“You shouldn't have brought that notebook out.”
“I didn't expect you to be here.”
“That was obvious.”
There it was.
Not anger.
Something worse.
Jealousy.
Controlled and buried, but unmistakable.
Briar's disbelief overcame her fear.
“Did you follow me?”
Ethan's eyebrows rose.
Garrison did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Briar stared.
“You followed me.”
“I made sure you arrived safely.”
“That is a very expensive way of saying followed.”
“You left work early for someone no one in my office had heard you mention.”
“My personal life is not an acquisition you're evaluating.”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Garrison's eyes went again to the notebook.
“Because eleven months ago, someone saved my life.”
Briar forgot about Ethan.
Forgot the restaurant.
Forgot the lamp glowing between them.
Garrison continued.
“I received an anonymous message telling me not to take Harbor Route to a warehouse meeting.”
Briar's fingers tightened.
“I changed cars. Changed routes. Fifteen minutes later, the vehicle I would have been in was boxed in by men who shouldn't have known I was coming.”
Ethan watched silently.
Garrison lowered his voice.
“The message included two things. A transfer number and a locker number.”
Briar said nothing.
“Locker 317.”
Her heartbeat became painful.
Garrison leaned slightly closer.
“I have spent eleven months looking for the person who sent it.”
“Why?”
He looked almost offended by the question.
“To find out whether they saved me because they were helping me or because they wanted something later.”
“And did you find them?”
“I found possibilities.”
Briar held his gaze.
“How many?”
“One.”
Ethan looked at her.
Briar felt it.
“So you hired me because you suspected me?”
Garrison's jaw shifted.
“You were already a temporary analyst.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“No.”
“Then answer it.”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
Briar leaned back.
The word hurt more than she expected.
She had earned her position.
At least she believed she had.
She had worked weekends.
Corrected payroll failures no one else could identify.
Found duplicate supplier invoices that saved Halloran Holdings more than eight hundred thousand dollars.
And all along—
“Was any of it real?”
Garrison frowned.
“What?”
“My promotion.”
“Yes.”
“My raises?”
“Briar.”
“My office?”
“You earned every inch of that building.”
“Then why watch me?”
“Because someone else was watching you first.”
Everything stopped.
Briar stared at him.
“What?”
Ethan's posture changed.
Garrison's attention flicked toward him.
“You should leave.”
Ethan gave a humorless smile.
“She's my date.”
“And she's in danger.”
“That doesn't mean you get to order me around.”
“No. It means if you actually care whether she gets home tonight, you'll stop turning this into a competition.”
Briar stood.
“Both of you stop.”
Several nearby diners glanced over.
She lowered her voice.
“I am not a briefcase being fought over.”
Garrison nodded once.
“You're right.”
Ethan sighed.
“So what danger?”
Garrison's phone vibrated.
He checked it.
Something changed in his face.
Not panic.
Never panic.
But the blood seemed to leave his expression.
“Briar, where did you park?”
She looked at him.
“Boylston garage.”
“Level?”
“Three.”
“Plate?”
“You know my plate.”
Garrison said nothing.
Briar realized what she had just said.
Ethan looked at her.
“You know her plate?”
Garrison ignored him and typed quickly.
Briar's anger returned.
“Exactly how much have you been watching me?”
“Enough to know someone photographed your car outside your apartment Tuesday night.”
Her breath caught.
“What?”
“I had security trace the vehicle.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I didn't want to frighten you until I knew what it meant.”
“Congratulations.”
He met her eyes.
“I know.”
Ethan looked genuinely disturbed now.
“Who photographed her?”
“We're trying to determine that.”
Garrison's phone rang.
He answered immediately.
“Talk.”
Briar watched his expression.
A low male voice spoke through the phone, too faint to understand.
Garrison turned toward the front windows.
“When?”
Another response.
“Don't touch it.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” Briar asked.
Garrison picked up her handbag before she could.
“We're leaving through the kitchen.”
“Why?”
“Someone broke into your car.”
Her blood ran cold.
Ethan grabbed his coat.
“I'm coming.”
Garrison looked at him.
“No.”
“I wasn't asking.”
Briar took her handbag back.
“Both of you are coming, because apparently my Friday dinner has become a board meeting.”
They moved toward the rear of the restaurant.
Garrison's security man appeared by the kitchen doors as though summoned from the walls.
Briar had seen him before.
Caleb Voss.
Forties.
Quiet.
Always watching.
He handed Garrison a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a small piece of paper.
Briar recognized it before anyone spoke.
It had been torn from her notebook.
Her face went numb.
“How did you get that?”
Caleb looked at Garrison.
“Found under the passenger-side wiper.”
Briar stared at the handwriting.
Her handwriting.
Three lines.
She knew exactly when she had written them.
Eleven months earlier.
DO NOT TAKE HARBOR ROUTE.
CHECK LOCKER 317.
TRUST NO ONE IN THE EAST OFFICE.
Ethan stepped closer.
“Briar?”
She couldn't answer.
Garrison's voice dropped.
“You wrote the warning.”
Briar looked at him.
“Yes.”
The word left her quietly.
Garrison stared at her as though the eleven months between them had suddenly disappeared.
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
“What?”
Briar looked at the torn page again.
Then at the security man.
Then at Ethan.
A terrifying possibility unfolded.
Nobody was supposed to possess that page.
Nobody except her.
And the original had never been stored in her apartment.
She had hidden it somewhere else.
Garrison saw the realization in her face.
“Where is the notebook usually kept?”
“This is the copy.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What?”
Briar swallowed.
“The real notebook is in a safe-deposit box.”
Garrison became perfectly still.
“What is in the real one?”
“Everything.”
“Everything about what?”
She looked at him.
“The person who ordered the Harbor ambush.”
Caleb's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
Then looked directly at Garrison.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We have movement at the bank.”
Briar's skin went cold.
“The safe-deposit room?”
Caleb nodded.
“Someone used your access code four minutes ago.”
Briar stared at him.
“That isn't possible.”
Garrison reached inside his jacket.
“Apparently it is.”
Caleb looked toward the service exit.
“The bank manager says the box is open.”
Briar stopped breathing.
Garrison asked one question.
“Who opened it?”
Caleb checked the message again.
Then his face changed.
“The authorization came from inside Halloran Holdings.”
And beneath it was a name.
Caleb looked up.
He did not say it.
Not yet.
Because the kitchen door behind them had just opened.
May you like
Someone was standing there.
Someone Briar knew.
