The man James had assigned to follow that almost saw me and Jessica or maybe he did because he suddenly had an accident and now he finally regained consciousness two days after the banquet.

James paced the length of our bedroom that morning, his phone glued to his ear, his voice sharp with questions. I sat in front of the mirror, pretending to smooth cream into my skin, though my ears strained to catch every word from James' call.

From the fragments I caught, the man claimed he could not remember anything from that night. He said one moment he was tailing me and the next everything went black.

James’s...