A tryst?
“You have too much confidence in me, Michael,” she worried, following him to the first row. “There are too many. There have to be hundreds in here.” The champagne and dancing had left her delightfully soft around the edges. She didn’t think she could focus. Especially after he mentioned trysting. From the easy way Malone smiled, she didn’t know how steady he was either. She liked him this way, looser and more relaxed, his sad eyes a little less sad, his grim mouth a little less grim.
“It’s a long shot. No pressure,” he reassured her. “Don’t bother with the hats or the women’s coats. Just the men’s. Touch and go, Dani. Touch and go.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Dr. Frank.” Ah. There he was again. Grim Michael. She didn’t blame him. The thought sobered her up immediately.
She skimmed her hand across the shoulders instead of the lapels. Lapels might cover the heart, but the contact at the back was constant, and if she had to be quick, that was where to focus.
It felt like flipping through face cards and trying to spot the joker. Colors and names, fears and frustrations. Treatment plans, antiseptic, stitches, and sleep deprivation.
“You’re right. Most of these men are doctors,” she murmured.
“What’d I tell you?”
She kept going, in and out of the rows, Malone beside her, keeping watch on the counter as he kept track of her progress.
It wasn’t until she’d groped her way through four sections that she felt a frisson on her fingertips. She’d begun to let her touch bounce from one hanger to the next, trying to cover as much area as she could. It was nothing more than an icy pinprick, but she halted and stepped back, reaching for the overcoat again.
The bell began to ring, pling, pling, pling, pling.
“Time to go.” Malone tugged her behind a numbered partition, his arm around her waist. It was enough to hide them from the view of whomever stood waiting for service, but not enough to give them cover the moment a porter returned.
The ringing became strident. Whoever had arrived at the coat check was not pleased.
“Do you have my claim ticket, Marie?”
“No, Martin. I don’t. I told you to give it to me,” Marie reminded him, voice patient.
“And I did. See? That’s it right there,” he said, triumphant.
“That’s not yours. That’s Francis’s. You didn’t give me yours. Check your breast pocket.”
Pling, pling, pling, pling.
“If we don’t leave now, we’ll have to wait in the queue. Where is my infernal ticket? And where is the attendant?”
Malone pulled her into another row as a portly man in coattails, nicotine trailing him like a fog and a bit of toilet tissue clinging to the bottom of his shoe, came bounding through a door somewhere in the back and hurried toward the clanging bell.
Pling, pling, pling.
“He gave his speech, now he’s ready to go. Can’t say I blame him,” Malone muttered.
“Who?” she whispered, but Malone was still listening to the exchange at the counter.
“I’m so sorry, Congressman,” the attendant said. “But . . . I really do need your claim ticket. I won’t be able to find your coat without it.”
“It’s the one right next to my wife’s. She has her ticket.” Tap, tap, tap. “That’s it, right there. Just grab the gray overcoat and the black bowler hat beside it. Those’ll be mine.”
“But, sir . . . it doesn’t always work that way.”
“Fine. Go with him, Marie,” the congressman snapped. “So he doesn’t grab the wrong ones.”
The attendant made a gurgle of protest and then must have thought better of it.
“Very well. If you would accompany me, madam,” he said. The whoosh of a door being opened and the swish of a woman’s skirts followed. Malone hesitated, his hand on her arm, waiting to see which way they would go.
“Well damn,” he muttered as they rounded the corner.
The attendant stopped so abruptly that Marie Sweeney let out a little oomph of surprise as she bumped into his back.
“You should not be back here,” the attendant stammered, his gaze pinging from Dani to Malone. He tugged at the bottom of his coat, indignant, like he was gearing up to blow a whistle or sound an alarm. Marie Sweeney peered around him, and her mouth dropped open.
“I needed my hat. You weren’t where you should be. I was tired of waiting,” Malone said, his voice so sinister the attendant took a step back and trod on Mrs. Sweeney’s pea-green dress.