The people in the room seemed to contract, as if a freezing wind had blown through, except for the Stella McCartney woman. She was too outraged for logic, but a man whom I hadn’t noticed—because he’d been quiet—took her arm and steered her out the door. The rest of the unhappy athletes followed.

Denise LaPorte slumped in her chair. She was young, probably early thirties, and on a normal day probably attractive—her buff arms an advertisement for the gym’s fitness trainers, with that honey-colored hair that takes hours to hand-paint and keep glowing. Today her skin was the color of paste, and she had gray circles under her eyes.

“This is the first time the room has been quiet since I started my shift at noon. Is it true what you said about the insurance claims?”

I hopped off the desk and shut the door. “Depends on how generous your management and your insurers want to be with your customers, but insurance companies are used to train-wreck add-ons.”

She looked at me blankly.

“When trains derail, you get more accident claims than the total number of passengers on board. Your carrier isn’t likely to pay for damaged items people wave around, although the gym may want to take care of them as a goodwill gesture. The claims could turn into a nightmare, so for your own protection make this your legal department’s problem.”

LaPorte gave a wobbly smile. “Thanks. That’s the first decent advice I’ve had for three days.”

“You’re beat and beaten up,” I said, “but I need to ask you about August Veriden.”

LaPorte shook her head. “I can’t tell you much. He’s a quiet guy, qualified trainer—he did a degree at Loyola, which has a great certification program, and he always met or exceeded our standards.”

I blinked. “That sounds like one of those online questionnaires.”

She flushed. “I memorized his employee chart when I was talking to the police and to corporate this morning. Some of the trainers like to chat, so I know about who they’re dating or their dental bills or whatever, but August isn’t a chatter. Everyone—I was going to say likes him, but maybe respects is more to the point. We all know that his dream is to be a filmmaker, and he does private jobs for people here—weddings or graduations. I’ve never worked with him, so I can’t tell you how good his videos are.”

“Any personal details in his file? Partner? Next of kin?”

LaPorte shook her head again. “When the cops asked to talk to him and he wasn’t answering his phone, I looked him up, but he only put in this cousin, who’s a freshman at Northwestern.”

I grimaced. “She’s the person who hired me to find him. She doesn’t know other relatives.”