Delilah Monroe gazed out over the decadent reception area of the gallery, taking in the spectacle. The hyperindulgent, ridiculous spectacle, she thought uncharitably. She had never really enjoyed large, ritualized social events, and the glamorous opening of a major New York art gallery…well, it hardly got larger or more ritualized than this. But she couldn’t afford to let these feelings interfere, especially not tonight. The first person you have to sell when you’re selling lies, her father had taught her, is yourself. And of course he was perfectly right. Delilah inhaled slowly, assuming her role. I’m a perfectly respectable individual and I’m here for perfectly innocent reasons, she told herself. I’m a successful author, everybody knows me, and I’ve never actually broken the law (which was, she thought wryly, actually the truth). I have no plans to break any laws tonight. I’m just here to support my brother in his new attempt at a clean slate. Nothing unusual is going to happen.

She stood on the second floor balcony and scanned the main gallery room, allowing her eyes to alight on the major players in the evening’s scheme. Her brother, dark and elegantly disreputable in a pair of dark...   read more »