“Henry asked her not to tell anyone until he did. Penn, listen … I can understand you not wanting to break the promise you made to Henry last night. But the whole landscape has changed since then. Henry had decided to come work for me, but now he might not even survive the night. I want to help him, to carry on his work. But I can’t do that unless I know where to start.”

“I gave you quite a bit last night, and more today.”

“Yes, but Henry must have told you more than that. A lot more. His girlfriend has the idea that you two were working together. And you know what I can do if you give me something to work with. I’ve got people here just waiting to dive into this story.”

“Nothing you can do between now and tomorrow morning is going to affect Henry’s chances of survival—or Dad’s, for that matter. So why don’t you work with what you have? In the morning we’ll check on Henry and reassess where we are.”

She closed her eyes and forced herself not to argue. “What if he dies tonight?”

“If Henry dies, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

She knew this was all she could reasonably hope for, yet she couldn’t help pushing the limit. “Penn, with the right information, I might even crack Viola’s murder by tomorrow. I could go a long way toward the solution, anyway. You know that.”

When he answered, she heard a warning note in his voice. “Babe, let’s just leave it where we are tonight. Okay?”

She grimaced and started to snap at him, but Penn sounded seriously stressed, so in the end she just said, “All right. I’ll make do.”

“Get Jamie to follow you home, okay? And make him wait until you get inside.”

“Truthfully, I’m probably going to stay here all night.”

“Even better. Don’t leave the building until daylight, all right?”

“Okay.” She started to say good-bye, but instinct told her something important remained unsaid. “Has something happened? Is everything okay? I mean, apart from the obvious?”

“Everything’s fine. We’ll talk face-to-face in the morning. Meanwhile, you don’t leave that newspaper building. I’m going to have Chief Logan put a cop outside.”

“Penn—”

“We’ll talk in the morning,” he said sharply. “I love you.”

And then he was gone.