Chuck Gruver sat in front of his monitors in his den deep in the bowels of the New York Stock Exchange. It was time for the opening bell to ring and set off another busy day of trading on the floor. The chairman of the Exchange and the VIP of the day, this one the chief executive officer of some new tech company that was floating its initial public stock offering today, were on the television screen. The grinning VIP rang the bell, waved to the camera, and then tossed a bunch of baseball caps bearing the company’s logo down to the floor. Most of the traders ignored the caps, though. The daily frenzy had started.

Gruver watched the ebb and flow of the trading on the various displays before him. The day before had been worrying. He still had a suspicious feeling, nothing he could pin down, but something didn’t feel right. That same uneasy intuition had come back today.

He leaned in to one of the monitors, as if taking a closer look at the scatting numbers might make clear to him whatever it was that was bothering him. There seemed to be too much sell pressure on particular stocks that shouldn’t have it. Whole sectors were drifting lower for no apparent reason.

Gruver shook his head. Probably nothing to worry about. He had long ago decided that he would go loony trying to figure what made traders do what they did. He laughed softly. If he could ever figure out what made those guys tick, he wouldn’t be down here in the basement babysitting a bunch of flickering computers.

The phone jangled, pulling him out of his reverie. He grabbed the receiver and jammed it to his ear.

“Gruver!” he growled.

“Collect call for Mr. Charles Gruver from a Ms. Catherine Goldman. Will you accept the charges?”

“Huh? Yes, of course. Put her on.”

The phone went dead for a second and then clicked back to life. He heard Catherine Goldman’s voice on the other end.

“Chuck? Chuck, is that really you?”

What the hell was wrong? She sounded awful. Scared and tired.

“Yeah, it’s me, Cath. What’s the matter with you? Where are you? Why are you calling collect?”

“They may be monitoring my iPhone account. Chuck, I need your help. I don’t know where else to turn. I’m so scared.” It was clear that she was bordering on hysteria. Gruver leaned forward and pulled the phone closer to his ear. This wasn’t the strong-willed, imperturbable New York girl he knew. Something was wrong. He listened as she went on. “Chuck, I shot a man. I think he’s dead. They’re coming to get me. They’re going to kill me.”

Gruver had to shout to break the manic flow of her words.