At 8:00 PM, three hundred people turned around when I walked into the Grand Ballroom.
Kendall made them.
She stood at the head table in white sequins, champagne up, with her phone on a little gold stand.
"Oh my God, you guys."
"Security, the thief came dressed."
Some of them laughed.
Most of them I had served.
I knew who wanted extra pillows and who packed the bathrobes.
I was in Mom's navy dress.
One pin was still in it, somewhere under my left arm.
Theo walked in beside me in a dark suit.
He didn't take my arm.
I'd told him not to.
Kendall tilted her head at the stream.
"Cute dress, Josie."
"Did it come with a name tag?"
The room cost $240,000.
White roses on every table.
A twelve-piece band in gold jackets.
Doug was at the end of the bar with a club soda, shaking hands.
Preston stood at Kendall's elbow with a champagne flute in his left hand.
Near the door, a man in a plain gray suit sat alone with a folder.
Ray Tanaka had come.
By the service doors stood the detective from the Erie Room.
I'd emailed him both pages myself, at five o'clock.
He hadn't written back.
He had come.
Theo crossed the dance floor to the bandstand.
He said something to the bandleader.
The music stopped mid-bar.
Theo took the microphone off its stand and walked it back to me.
"Your turn."
He put it in my hand.
Then he stepped back two paces and stayed there.
Kendall laughed into her phone.
"Oh, she's giving a toast."
"Bless her."
I unfolded Priya's page.
My hands weren't shaking anymore.
"Thursday, November 12."
"1:31 AM."
"User DBRANDT made a key for 1814."
"He typed my name on it."
Three hundred heads turned to the bar.
Doug laughed his banquet laugh.
"Someone used my login."
"Half this building knows my password."
"Your badge opened the front office at 1:29," I said.
"A badge doesn't have a password."
"Mine was in a drop box at 11:04."
"It died at eleven."
Doug's smile kept going after his face had stopped.
Phones came up at every table.
Kendall's stand swung around to follow him.
Doug looked at the page in my hand.
Then at Preston.
Preston was studying the bubbles in his champagne.
Doug's mouth opened before he decided to open it.
"He paid me fifteen thousand!"
Doug said it to the whole room.
"Cash, Tuesday, in my car."
"He said nobody checks!"
Kendall set her glass down very carefully.
She turned to Preston.
"Fifteen thousand?"
"Kendall, you're live."
"You said nobody's really out anything."
"You said it was insurance."
"You said it was like a refund."
Preston smiled at the nearest table.
"She's had champagne."
In the back, a chair scraped.
The man in the gray suit stood up with his folder.
"Ray Tanaka."
"Lakefront Mutual."
"Mr. Whitlock, the thirtieth."
"Examination under oath."
"Bring your lawyer."
Preston straightened his cuffs.
"This is insane."
"I was at the condo all night."
"The man in the hallway held the key in his left hand," I said.
Every eye went to the flute.
It was in his left hand.
He moved it to his right.
Everyone watched him do it.
I turned to Kendall.
She was still standing behind her phone.
"You searched my bag," I said.
"You never searched your fiancé."
Somebody by the bell stand doors yelled it first.
"Search his bag!"
Then a table of bridesmaids took it up.
"Search his bag!"
Preston set the flute on a passing tray.
He walked out the side door without his coat.
Ray Tanaka watched him go and wrote something down.
The detective put a hand on Doug's elbow.
He didn't cuff him.
He just walked him.
Doug went past the bandstand, two feet from me.
"Josie," he said.
"Five years."
I didn't answer him.
The doors swung shut behind them both.
Kendall sat down.
She laid her phone face down on the tablecloth.
She didn't end the stream.
The little red light kept glowing at the edge, under the roses.
Three hundred people sat in a ballroom nobody had paid for yet.
The band looked at Theo.
Theo looked at me.
I handed him back the microphone.
He set it on the stand and nodded to the bandleader.
A slow song started in the middle of the second verse.
Theo walked out onto the empty floor.
He held out his hand.
"Dance with me."