So, when he didn’t see a top for the story about the report, and when he asked Martina after the two o’clock where it was, and she said Mitch was busy on the phone continuously, he worried. Actually, he was suspicious. He’d presided over enough pastings in his career to know the signs of being whipped by the competition. It often began with the top not materializing by three o’clock.

So here it was four-thirty in the afternoon, and still no top. Adam could not sit at his desk. He tried to see if Stanley was out there. He couldn’t see past the first line of desks. Why did everyone seem to be standing at this hour? They should be on the phone, or better, out on the streets, in the field, anywhere but here. Phoning a story in, that was the way it was done when he’d started. You were out in the world. Today, they sat at desks in the Room, attached to headsets attached to phones. They were all wordsmiths now, looking for book contracts.

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.”