In a bit of grace, she soon found herself walking past the Harrison Public Library. Inside its cool, quiet rooms, between the stacks, she remembered how libraries in the towns she grew up in outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were sanctuaries in her youth. The smell of old paper, the coolness of the metal shelves, the smoothness of the tile floors. Libraries were a place for hiding as well as exploring, same as the books they freely offered. She found a chair in a corner and sat awhile. Her phone remained inside her purse like a radioactive stone encased in lead; breaking the seal would expose her to its harmful rays, poisoning her. Numb, she ruminated on her damaged career, on her disrupted life, on Leppo’s death. Children walked past her and she had to close her eyes, so shaken was she by the images of the slain Peters children.

The closing in fifteen minutes announcement came, and Odessa felt sick. She found a clock and wondered if any of the reporters—at least the television reporters—had given up on featuring her in their newscast. It was dark outside and she walked directly to her apartment building, key in hand. Thankfully, there were no TV trucks and no reporters in sight. She made it inside her lobby without incident, and upstairs into her apartment.

The next morning, she was unable to deal with 90 percent of what was on her phone, but one message got through. Her boss told her not to come in to Claremont for work, but to report to the New York City Field Office instead. Odessa took the subway in to Tribeca, and for the first two days of her temporary reassignment the brass on the twenty-third floor tried to find something for her to do. She expended a lot of energy trying to look busy, but by the end of the second day she was fine just looking out the window. Nobody talked to her.

On the third day, the office emptied for Walt Leppo’s funeral. Odessa could not bring herself to attend it. She was certain no one wanted her to go. Sitting at an empty desk knowing her friend and mentor was being eulogized and buried across the river: That was her lowest point.

Her mother kept calling. Odessa communicated with her siblings—there were five, the closest one to her geographically living outside Cincinnati, Ohio—by text, telling them she was okay and promising to call on the weekend. Her siblings were well intentioned, but the mere thought of actually talking to them about what had happened was draining. With her mother, she caught a break. In a rare moment of mercy, Odessa’s call went to voicemail.