I watched his fingers work the keypad. I lifted my glass and took a slow sip of water. It was the finest water I had ever tasted. The machine let out a long flat tone. Failure.
The waiter came back and the apology had gone out of his face replaced by something leaning closer to suspicion and declined. Ma'am, he said. Ingrid's utensil struck the china like a small struck bell. Declined. The word left her mouth too loud for a restaurant.
That card draws from my private account. None of this involves him. Then every account bearing the Dunore name appears to have been placed under a hold. The waiter directed this to the full table. Around them the business guests were already in motion chairs, scraping back hands, going to jacket buttons, phones appearing from pockets.
Whatever atmosphere Declan had constructed for the evening dissolved on the spot. The man they'd gathered to see prosperous commanding someone with things firmly in hand had ceased to exist. What stood in his place was someone who couldn't settle his own dinner bill. Declan, "I think we'd better call it a night."
One of the men said another time might work better for everyone. No, stay where you are. Declan said, the steadiness bleeding out of his voice fast. This is the banking error. My father, he doesn't understand how the accounts are structured.
The dementia he's been calling people, saying things that don't add up. Even with the floor collapsing under him, he swung the aim back at me. The man he'd robbed was still serviceable as cover. He turned toward the bar and found me. What crossed his face when our eyes met was not what he had prepared for.
I wasn't looking down. I wasn't diminished. My gaze held his straight and level. Something passed between us in that span, a second, perhaps two, that had never passed between us before. He saw it.
Not the old man he'd steered and managed. Something else. something that had been present the whole time, watching and cataloging, waiting. He came toward me, a chair toppled in his wake. Every person in the room could read what was happening, loud, unraveling, aimed at a white-haired man standing quietly at the bar.
Dad. His voice broke across the word. What have you done? Answer me. What did you do to the money?
Every table went silent. Every head turned. A son in a fitted Italian suit coming apart in public, directing it all at an old man in a 14-year-old coat. I set my glass on the bar without any rush. I didn't move toward him.