At seven o clock, Rainy went to the buffet. She scanned the bodies at the various hot stations and spun around to look at the salad bar, where a line of gray-haired ladies was calling out to each other about cottage cheese. There were people everywhere, walking in twos, threes and fours. Rainy felt numb with a side of nausea. Grabbing a plate, she got in line, trying not to look at mounds of mayonnaise salad, keeping her eyes peeled for whatever Paul intended for her to see. Staff were positioned around the room in sparkling dinner jackets, looking ready to jump into action or song. It was a lot to keep track of. No wonder this was where he’d sent her; there was too much chaos for her to watch everything that was going on. He could be anywhere, posing as anyone. Rainy’s plate was still empty as the line crawled past the lettuce. She grabbed spinach with the tongs, her gaze carefully combing the area. This was stupid—ridiculous. What if he was toying with her? The ache of anxiety riding in her chest crested when there was nothing significant near the trays of onions and cucumber, and she thought of the message again; he’d told her to go through the buffet lines, and that she’d know what she was seeing when she was seeing it. She had no clue what that was supposed to mean, except that he was in charge and she had to do what he said. For now, she told herself. That made her feel better, the idea that she was just playing his game until she could play her own.

There was no sign of anything weird at the meat-cutting stations, so she turned left toward the soup, and then there it was: her name on a placard above one of the lidded soup containers: Rainy Chowder. Rainy peered closer, thinking that maybe it was a coincidence, but the script on the first word was slightly smaller than the second. It was an envelope, small and white, stuck to the top of the placard. She pulled it off to reveal the Corn. The envelope fit comfortably into her palm. Rainy abandoned her plate on a trolley of dirty dishes and walked straight for the door.