Her shoulders sagged and the backpack fell to the carpeting. In an instant, Grace and Mr. Munson looked up. Saw her. Munson leaped away from Grace, his tortoiseshell glasses twisting on his nose, his tie catching on the back of her chair.
“Miss Gavin?” Munson adjusted his glasses.
Grace pulled a tissue from a flowered box on her desk and dabbed her eyes. She fussed with her hair, blinking at Ella as if trying to remember who she was.
Ella had to say something. “I’d like to make an appointment with Mr. Brannigan,” she began. “At his convenience, of course, but-”
“Miss Gavin?” Munson interrupted her. “Step in, please. Did you talk to Mr. Brannigan last night?”
What was this all about?
“No. Does he need something?” Ella decided not to say she’d tried to call him this morning. She entered the office, assessing the closed inner office door, the distraught secretary, the hovering executive. A coffee pot hissed from a shelf in the corner. Grace had a cup of steaming tea on her desk, the tea bag’s string dangling down one side of the flowered china.
“Ah. No. Miss Gavin? The police. Found a car.” Munson adjusted his glasses, which were not out of place. “Mr. Brannigan’s car. And it appears something must have happened to Mr. Brannigan.”
“A car accident?” Ella could not believe it. “Is he all right?”
“No.” Munson adjusted his glasses again, eyeing Brannigan’s closed office door. “We-Miss O’Connor, actually-was contacted by the police a few moments ago. And I fear the police think-”
“Now I have to call his wife,” Grace said. “And tell her Mr. Brannigan is dead.”
“What?” Ella heard her own voice crack. The floor seemed not quite steady. She put a hand to her throat, as if she could feel the scream. He was dead?
“No, Grace,” Munson said. “It’s not necessary that you call Mrs. Brannigan. The police do that. And Miss Gavin?”
“Yes?” Her voice had come out a croaking whisper, her heart clenched. Ella dug her fingernails into her palms. If the police checked Mr. Brannigan’s private line, would they discover she’d called him?
Her fingers tightened around her backpack’s webbed strap. She had to hang on to these documents. No. She had to get rid of these documents. No. How would she decide? She cleared her throat, tried again. “Yes?”
“The police say no one is to leave,” Munson instructed her. “Go to your office, Miss Gavin. Talk to no one. And wait.”
Oh, dear God, Ella thought. No one can protect me now.
Jane stirred three packs of sugar into her extra-large coffee with skim milk, balancing the paper coffee cup on the edge of the steering wheel. As soon as she and Tuck caught their breath a little, they’d pull out of the Taco Bell parking lot, head back to the Mass Pike, and continue their journey. No way could whoever drove the black truck find them again. Not this morning, at least. And really, looking at it in the cold (and safe) light of this suburban parking lot, the black truck probably had nothing to do with the DFS case, nothing to do with the threatening call about Brianna Tillson. How would whoever it was even know where she was? If he really was following her, no way he could know where she and Tuck were headed.
In the passenger seat, Tuck was texting someone, her husband, Laney, probably, who Tuck reported was job hunting in Philadelphia.
Jane took a deep breath, smelling the dark roast of her coffee and a faint fragrance of fried something from Tuck’s side of the car. She felt a little shaky, no denying that. Was Alex right to get her out of town? Or was that the worst possible thing?
She pulled her cell phone from her jacket pocket, propped it on the dashboard. She should call him. Tell him. Then see if anything was developing with Tillson. Maybe Hec could bring his photos somewhere, away from the Register. She could work on the Tillson story and still obey the publisher’s orders.
A sip of coffee. That truck.
“Tuck? Can you do me a favor?” she said.
“Sure. All done.” Tuck stashed her phone, and started peeling the flimsy waxed paper from her breakfast-a-rito. Shards of orange cheese dripped onto her parka. She picked them up, one by one, and popped them into her mouth. “Five second rule, right? What favor?”
Jane’s phone trilled, interrupting, and a photo popped onto the screen of a young woman in a Springsteen T-shirt, baby propped on one hip and holding hands with little boy dressed as Spider-Man.
“Ah, yeah, wait a sec, this is my building super.” Jane grabbed her cell phone from the dashboard. “Hey, Neena. What’s up? Oh, hi Eli.”
Her building super’s nine-year-old son loved to use the phone. And especially loved to call Jane. Eli had a crush on her, as only a star-struck nine-year-old boy could have on a thirty-three-year-old woman. He insisted he wanted to be on TV, and unlike the rest of the universe, little Eli Fichera hadn’t seemed to grasp the concept that Jane’s TV career was over. “Yes, I know it’s February break. Very cool. Is that why you’re calling me? Are you having fun?”
She paused, listening to a rush of almost-understandable chatter about Transformers and Xbox and police officers and guns and something important his mother had told him to tell her. “So, sweetheart? Is your mom around? Can you go get her for me?”
Jane heard the empty hiss of the open connection.
“Hey, Tuck?” Jane had thought of something else. “Did you tell Carlyn Beerman we were coming? When I was pumping gas?”
“Uh, yeah, I did,” Tuck said around a bite of burrito. She chewed, then swallowed. “I said I was coming up from Boston and-”
“Did you tell her I was-Oh, hi, Eli.” Jane needed a sip of coffee, and needed another hand to do it. She poked the cell onto speaker, and set it on the dashboard. Took a grateful gulp. “Is your mom coming to the phone?”
“Yes, but she says, did you leave your door open?” Eli’s little voice piped through the speaker.
Jane looked at Tuck, who’d stopped mid-bite.
“Hey, Jane.” Neena’s voice was subdued, softer than usual.
Jane leaned forward to hear, clutching the corrugated cardboard sleeve around her coffee cup.
“I called the police,” Neena went on, “because, listen, your apartment door is open. Wide open. I saw it when I went downstairs. The nine-one-one operator told me-”
“My apartment door was open?” Jane’s voice came out a screech. Tuck put a reassuring hand on her arm.
“-told me not to go in, so I didn’t, but the police are on the way now. I looked, though, honey, and it doesn’t seem like anything’s-”
“The police, mommy?” Jane could hear Eli’s voice in the background.
“Hush, kiddo.” Neena’s voice turned away for a second, then back to Jane. “They’re on the way, like I said, and from what I can see standing out here in the hall, there’s no-”
“Neen? Open, like, open? What do you mean, open?” It wouldn’t help to freak out. Maybe she’d spaced, and left her door open? Had Tuck forgotten to close it? Impossible. Tuck had gone out first, Jane locked the door behind them. They were an hour from Boston. She had to stay calm enough to drive back.
“Honey, yeah, it’s as if you left it that way. There’s no damage, it’s just, open, and looking at it, it doesn’t seem as if-”