“Good,” Lou said. If she was disappointed I didn’t go into more detail, she didn’t show it.

“What about you?” I surveyed her briefly—white T-shirt, blue jeans, sneakers. Nothing that would make me think she’d been anywhere other than her own apartment last night. “Seeing anyone new?”

Lou pursed her lips, let out a little hum. “Nothing special.”

I smiled into my coffee, then reached over and put my hand over the key chain from Lou’s keys, still hooked into the engine and ticking back and forth. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

But I was already out of the car, checking the traffic, trotting toward Carrigan’s office. After a moment, I heard Lou get out of the car, walking slowly, reluctantly even, behind me.

I wondered if she was thinking of the last time we’d been in an office building downtown together. How badly that encounter had ended. I was.

I gave Carrigan’s name at the security desk, which directed us to the ninth floor. Once the elevator doors closed behind us, Lou turned to me.

“What are you doing?” Lou’s eyes were smudgy and a little bit nervous and a lot thrilled.

“Trust me,” I said, smiling.

The doors dinged open on a big glass desk where a woman was glaring into the screen of her computer, asymmetrical haircut shuffled behind one ear.

“Can I help you?”

A woman behind the desk; too bad. Women were much better at remembering the little details about other women—the way they dressed, how they wore their hair. To a man, I’d be some random brunette asking questions. A quick glance behind the desk showed a pair of pink pumps tucked behind her chair wheels. And on her lap, a copy of the Paris Review she’d shuffled guiltily off her desk as we approached.

I made a split-second decision. “We’re here for an interview with Mr. Carrigan,” I said. “The Times sent me.”

That interested her. She squinted at me and then at Lou, who managed a smile despite looking a little green around the gills. I was right. Offices did still make her nervous. “The Times sent two reporters for an interview?”

“My photographer,” I said. On cue, Lou waved her phone in the air. I kept talking quickly, to distract the receptionist from the fact that Lou’s most advanced equipment was a phone several years old. I nodded at the journal in her lap. “You a writer?”

She gave me a slow grin, a little shoulder shrug. “When I’m not here.” She looked back at the computer and frowned. At the corner of the desk, a tiny pile of Carrigan campaign brochures were nearly hidden underneath a paperweight. Interesting. “I don’t see anything on Mr. Carrigan’s schedule about an interview. You sure you’ve got the right date, hon?”