She led me back to the reception area, but she didn’t make the expected turn to the elevator bank; she continued down a corridor on the other side of the building. I sent a confused look backward. The receptionist was watching, and she showed a small smile when I saw that I’d been caught.

“Here we are,” Marcia said, stopping beside a closed door. “Let me just see if she’s on the phone.” She tapped once and ducked her head into the office.

I stared at the nameplate beside the door. Lucy Carter-Jones, it said. Vice President and Director of Human Resources. The door swung wide, and an attractive, middle-aged blonde rose from behind a spotless desk. She smiled.

In the five seconds it took me to step in and shake her hand, the hope swelled up and crashed over me like a tsunami. It was happening. I was getting the job. We’d have a real income for the first time in five years. We could move out of the basement to a bigger apartment; we could hire a bankruptcy lawyer and discharge the mortgage deficiency judgment and work out a payment plan on all the rest; I could get some help for David; we’d get our lives back; we’d be ourselves again.

“Hello, so nice to meet you,” I said.

Chapter 9

A crew was at work Monday morning installing a metal detector in the lobby. Too little, too late, Ingram Barrett thought as he sidestepped them on his way off the elevator. Car 3 was still barricaded with yellow crime scene tape, and the office workers streaming in from the street stopped to gawk at both of these new developments. Some of them were getting out their phones on the spot to Google the news and find out what had happened.

He’d have to get a press release out soon. The Communications Department put together a draft overnight, but it was far too equivocal for his taste. After this morning’s meeting, after things were settled, he’d take a stab at writing it himself.

The company limo was just pulling up to the curb. Barrett would have preferred to summon the detectives to his office for this meeting, just as he’d already done with the building manager and the elevator company representative. But Jack Culligan said it would play better if they went to the police instead. Culligan was retired FBI, so Barrett supposed he should defer to him in matters like this.

Lester Willard was behind the wheel of the limo. Driving wasn’t one of his regular duties, but Barrett thought it best to keep a tight circle on this operation. The only ones who needed to know were the ones who already knew. These three plus Phil Duvall. It still rankled, Duvall’s insistence on keeping his hands clean. As if he weren’t the one who worked his magic to make the numbers jibe. But his role was limited to changing figures on a spreadsheet. It was Barrett and Culligan who had to do the dirty work. And Lucy, of course.