He was grouchy. Very grouchy. The phone rang. He let Tabitha take it.

Now she was buzzing him. She was out of step. She had no use for messaging. She was badly in need of retraining.

He picked up, annoyed.

“Adam Aaron,” came her voice. How had he settled for Tabitha? She should be in the book-review section, what was left of it.

“Yes.”

“Security is calling from the front lobby. They say Mabel Cannon’s down there, forgot her ID, and she wants to come up. To see you. Says it’s urgent.”

“It’s too close to deadline.”

“I told them that. They just say she’s causing ‘a commotion.’ ‘Couldn’t somebody please come down to the lobby and escort her to the fifth floor?’ And such.”

“Go down there and tell her I can’t see her.”

“All right, then.”

The phone rang again.

“Mr. Sanger, this is Security in the front lobby. We have a situation down here.”

“A situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Just then his other line rang. And there was no Tabitha.

“You’re going to have to hold on,” Adam said. He picked up the other line.

“Adam, this is Mabel. I’m on my cell in the lobby. Would you please tell this man to let me take the elevator upstairs?”

“Mabel, this is not a good time.”

“I know that. Why do you think I’m here?”

Adam couldn’t quite grasp that. She was nuts. But she was Don Grady’s wife.

“Put him on the line. The guard. Give him your cell phone.”

“He’s on the phone.”

Adam was incensed. He pushed the other button for the other line.

“Let Mabel Cannon go upstairs,” he said.

“Sir, I can’t do that. You’re going to have to come down here.”

“Mabel Cannon is Don Grady’s wife.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

Vera went to the ladies’ and splashed her face to break the nausea. She’d already had to take a walk and a smoke when Mitch busted the first-edition deadline. She’d always had a crazy stomach, but this was probably the worst case of empathy ever. It was too bad the scanner was routine and every precinct was tomblike. If she’d had one brief, even a weekender she should be starting, she might get distracted. All she had was a pile of clips to read about F-16 crashes that News Research had put together for her. Stanley thought the clips were a waste of time. Walk around the crash site, he told her. She didn’t have altogether that much faith in Stanley’s reporting suggestions. Plus, he couldn’t seem to remember that so far not one official had been willing to tell her where the site was.