Chapter 7: The Restaurant Where Secrets Eat

L'Etoile did not have a sign. It had a brass door, a camera hidden in a wreath of winter ivy, and a hostess who could identify a senator's mistress from a reflected shoe. Leah arrived in a black dress that belonged to Megan and shoes bought with two weeks of saved tips. The manager, Karim, looked at her resume for twelve seconds. "You worked at the Belgrave?" "Private housekeeping," Leah said. "References?" "The kind who prefer privacy." Karim almost smiled. "Good answer for this place. Terrible answer for anywhere honest." He hired her for the trial shift. By seven, Leah understood L'Etoile's true business. It did not sell food. It sold the illusion that no one was listening. Deals happened behind velvet curtains. Affairs negotiated seating charts. Men who owned newspapers spoke more freely to wine than to lawyers. Megan worked the bar and warned Leah with her eyes whenever a table mattered. At nine ten, the front room quieted by one degree. Ethan Hunt entered alone. He was taller than Leah remembered from the ballroom, dressed in a charcoal suit without a visible logo, his expression unreadable enough to make every server straighten. He did not scan the room like a man seeking admiration. He scanned it like a man measuring exits. Karim placed him at Table 12. "No mistakes," he told Leah. "Mr. Hunt notices everything." Leah approached with water and a menu she had memorized. "Good evening, Mr. Hunt." His eyes lifted to her face. For one brutal second, she thought he knew. Then his gaze moved past her to the left side of the room, where Sebastian Costa had just arrived with Olivia on his arm. Olivia wore white. She always wore white now, as if innocence could be tailored. Sebastian laughed at something she said, then looked across the room and saw Ethan. The laughter died. Interesting, Leah thought. "Sparkling," Ethan said. His voice was calm, but the fingers of his right hand tightened once on the table edge when Olivia leaned into Sebastian. Leah poured the water. Ethan's cuff shifted, revealing a thin scar around his wrist, old and pale. Megan had told her to keep her head down. Leah lowered her voice anyway. "Will anyone be joining you?" Ethan looked at her again. "That depends," he said. "On whether the dead stay dead tonight." The glass pitcher slipped half an inch in Leah's hand before she caught it. Ethan's mouth did not move, but his eyes sharpened. Across the room, Olivia turned suddenly, as if she had felt Isabella breathe.