Not a blatant apology, but Caitlin could imagine how Mary felt. She’d risked the career she loved by taking on the cops, lost, and had to reward them with a front-page victory lap. No doubt, Lakshmi had done the same. Caitlin wouldn’t let their sacrifice go without recognition.

Tears were coming, but she wouldn’t fight them. She threw her head back, cried for her friend, for her pain, for years of silence. She’d look pathetic for the camera, but Embower’s gambit had only steeled her resolve.

After twenty minutes of waterworks, she tossed the paper on the table and walked to the bookcase. She stared at the books, pulled a few, returned them, opted finally for the Riverside Shakespeare. She took her dinner and her hope to the couch.

Don’t open the cover yet. Eat the food.

Caitlin got the container’s chicken salad down, drank some water, then finally reached into William’s insides.

Page 709, gone. Caitlin’s message, gone.

She turned to 711, 713, 715, flipped the pages with her thumb, watched the words of the Bard pass by unaltered, 953, 1175, 1233.

Near the end, her finger caught a dog-ear.

Wedged between pages, she found five of the cutout words she’d used to make her message for Angela.

Caitlin Bergman

ready

Angela

Caitlin allowed herself a tiny smile, then wadded the words, dropped the ball into her salad, and scooped a forkful of lettuce and paper into her mouth.

After dinner, she walked Shakespeare back to the shelf and found a play by Tennessee Williams she’d seen the day before, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow. She folded the blue paper cover so the title displayed as Imagine Tomorrow and shoved it into Riverside like a bookmark.

Maybe Embower’d seen the whole thing. Maybe not.

Caitlin set the DVD case for Tommy Boy on the counter facing the camera and returned to the couch to finish her salad. Chris Farley didn’t appear on the TV for an hour. She sat back and enjoyed the movie.

Whatever Embower’d been doing, he hadn’t checked on her until now.

Chapter 75

CHAPTER

75

THE NEXT MORNING, Mike studied the duplex from the passenger window of his rental. “Might be cameras. Keep driving.”

Greenwood slowed but didn’t stop at Branford’s house. “Roman, people are gonna notice if this takes more than an hour.”

“You’re not allowed to get breakfast with a friend?”

“Sure I am.” Greenwood let out a chuckle. “Just not one of Caitlin’s friends. We didn’t even get breakfast.”

“You didn’t have to say yes,” Mike said, his eyes on the property. “What’s down the road?”

“Old quarry.”

“Like the Flintstones?”

Greenwood nodded. “Gotta turn around anyway. I’ll show you.”

Mike used his side mirror to see the back of Branford’s garage. Decent siding, well-kept grass. “Shouldn’t a single acting professor be close enough to campus to let his good-looking students make some mistakes?”