Now that he was no longer holding on to her, Katie thought she could make her escape. She was betting she could outrun him. And yet, she stayed where she was, sensing that maybe the crisis had passed.

“Did you see any cut-up bodies when you peeked in?” he asked her.

Katie managed to get out one word. “No.”

Bruce Clifford nodded slowly. “So you’re not going to call the police on me.”

She shook her head.

“Then I guess I won’t call them on you,” he said. “Deal?”

Katie swallowed and said, “Deal.”

“So you saw what was in there,” he said. It didn’t sound like a question, but it was.

“I did.”

“You won’t tell anyone,” he said, tilting his head slyly.

“No, I won’t,” she said.

“I’ll show it to you, if you’d like,” Bruce Clifford said.

Katie considered the offer. Now that her initial scare was over, the guy seemed pretty harmless. Running back across the street, entering her house, and locking the door behind her was probably the smarter choice, but curiosity could be a powerful thing.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, her tongue so dry it was sticking to the roof of her mouth. “Show me.”

Eleven

Sandra needed to pull herself together before she could leave the community center. She’d shed a few tears and knew her eye makeup had to be halfway to her lips, so she slipped into a ladies’ room and went to the mirror. She looked a fright. She dug out what she needed from her purse and went to work.

Sandra was not walking out of this building looking anything less than one hundred percent confident. There would be no tears running down her cheeks. There would be no quivering chin. She was going to hold her head high. She did her job. She executed on everything that was asked of her, and more. This event had run like a Swiss watch. It was not her fault Lisa Carver couldn’t handle a tough question from a member of the media. It was not her fault the Arrival corporation was tainted by some industrial sabotage scandal, maybe even a murder. Some things were beyond Sandra’s control, and Lisa Carver and Albert Ruskin should have had the decency to understand that.

What a couple of cocks.

Exiting the ladies’ room and heading one last time through the gymnasium on her way to the front door, she realized that if there was anything she got right, it was the caterer. The attending reporters were at the buffet table, hoovering the snacks. She didn’t see any of them, not even the ones drinking the coffee, getting the slightest bit sick. Whatever had upset Carver’s stomach, it wasn’t the food and drink provided. Maybe she had a bit of a bug or something.