She put her phone away. “Chloe’s gig, was it the Twin Cities Auto Show?”

“That sounds right.”

“Did Chloe say anything about meeting a photographer at the auto show? Think hard.”

Alice stared out at the river, the unrelenting thunder of the falls permeating the air around them. “I can’t remember. I’m trying—I really am.”

“I know.” Niki slid her business card across the table. “Keep thinking on it, and if you come up with anything more, promise me you’ll call.”

“I will.”

As Niki stood to leave, Alice said, “You were right, you know…about Chloe not deserving what happened. I feel bad for saying what I did.”

Niki wanted to say that it was okay, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay that Alice Kempker let her dislike for Chloe interfere with the statement she gave Tony Voss. She left out the identifying stain on the side of the Bronco. It might not have changed things, but who knows? If she’d mentioned it, maybe Sadie Vauk wouldn’t have gone through her ordeal. So Niki only gave Alice a slight nod.

“Did I give you anything that helps?”

“I hope so,” Niki said.

Chapter 41

Lila carried the letter from the Board of Law Examiners into the Government Center that Friday morning, rolled up in her hand as she made her way past the metal detectors. She’d brought it to show Andi, hoping that there might be a way to get around Frank Dovey, although in the back of her mind she knew there wouldn’t be. That letter had been the reason Dovey ordered Andi to go through him with Lila’s personnel matters. It was simply one more maneuver in a much longer strategy.

When she arrived at the bank of elevators, she spotted Frank standing amid a handful of people waiting to go up. Lila stayed back away from Dovey’s view. Two elevators dinged their arrival at the same time, one in front of Dovey, the other closer to her. The small crowd divided toward the two open doors, and once inside, Lila pushed the button for the twentieth floor. The doors juked as if wanting to shut, but popped back open—and Frank Dovey stepped in.

He stood close enough to Lila that she could smell the cutting scent of his cheap cologne. The doors closed and didn’t open again until they got to the fifth floor, where Lila stepped off to let a woman behind her out. As she waited, it occurred to her that if she stayed there—let the doors shut—she could take a different car up to the twentieth floor.

After the woman stepped out, Lila didn’t move to get back in the elevator, and neither did she walk away. She watched the bottom of the elevator door, paralyzed, waiting for it to close, to make the decision for her. And when it didn’t, she looked up to see Frank Dovey holding it open. He gave a subtle wave of his free hand as if to gesture her back into the car, and she obeyed.