Why do you care? It doesn’t have to be a competition. You’ve got zero reason to try and prove yourself.

Wow. She really was on the happy path of acceptance these days if she could string all those thoughts together. She’d have to text Aunt Frieda ASAP and share the good news.

She shrugged and headed for the door, enjoying the lightness that came in the wake of her thoughts. “Oh, well. Maybe there’s something unexpected they needed her to cover.”

“Not your problem, sister. You’re prime time and on the camera today.”

Exactly.

Life was good. All she had to do was enjoy it and be grateful. She swiped her badge, pulled the door open and waved to Bonnie. “See you at lunchtime.”

“Deal.”

Inside the bullpen where the reporters’ desks were lined up, it was mostly quiet. One of her male colleagues tap-tap-tapped away at his keyboard, the epitome of professional focus. Another one had his chin propped on one hand, his eyes halfway closed. Lizbet’s desk was empty.

“Hey, Tom,” she said to the first man, then rapped her knuckles on the second one’s desk as she passed. “Long night, Jerry?”

“Something like that,” he said, barely stirring.

She unloaded her briefcase, docked her laptop and settled herself behind her desk. The upside to getting in a little early meant she’d have some extra time to give a second look to the André’s security footage, even if she wasn’t very hopeful of finding anything new. The first pass through she’d taken pains to study the woman she’d originally recognized, but nothing had triggered her memory. And, if the woman had actually managed to take a picture of Cassie and Kir with her phone, she had to have done it during one of the many passes the bartender had made in front of her.

Look. Fast forward. Pause. Rewind. Look again.

After thirty minutes, she was pretty sure she looked as interested in the images on her screen as Jerry was looking at his.

Her desk phone rang, a sharp, technical sound that visibly startled everyone in the room.

The readout showed her editor, Ed, calling from his office.

Odd. He rarely came in on the weekends unless a big story was brewing, or he’d had a roaring fight with his wife.

“Sorry,” Cassie murmured to Jerry and Tom, then picked up the phone. “Yes, sir?”

“Need you to come up.” On the bright side, he sounded distracted more than mad. A plus for whatever he wanted to talk about.

“Sure, let me grab something to write on. Or do I need to bring my computer?”

“Just yourself.”

An uncomfortable, prickling awareness whispered across her shoulders. As if someone had cracked a nonexistent window in the middle of a winter storm. “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

Through the hall and past the studio, everything and everyone carried on as she’d expect them to, but the sense that something was different—off-kilter or happening as an alternate reality—clung to every step. She took the stairs to the second floor where the managers’ offices were located. Just as she opened the stairwell door and stepped out, the elevator down the hall dinged and the doors swooshed open.