Chapter 14 · Bait Page

Gia took the note. I watched her do it.

Not straight-on. Through the curved, distorted glass of the banker’s lamp on my desk. Her pale hand slid across the blotter, snatched the crumpled scrap I’d tossed, and shoved it right up her cashmere sleeve.

Smooth. Like a stage magician.

"Dinner’s at eight," she said from the doorway, bright as a bell. "Eat something, Mara. You look like death."

I kept my pencil scratching against paper. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t turn around.

"Thanks, Gia. I will."

Her heels clicked down the hall. The dehumidifier hummed in the corner. My stomach dropped straight through my shoes.

The scrap she stole was garbage—a dead-end cipher shift I’d scrapped on page nine. But she didn't know that. And she hadn't asked me for it. She just pocketed it.

Gia. The only person in this godforsaken house who’d ever offered me a cigarette and whispered, *I’d go crazy in here too.*

I laid the pencil down. My palms hit the blotter, flat and cold. They wouldn’t stop shaking.

*Don't guess. Test it.*

I yanked a fresh sheet from the drawer and went to work. Twenty minutes, sweating under the green bulb.