It was a frightened woman trying to distinguish what she knew from what she feared.

She refused to guess about details she could not recall.

I stopped the recording when she said, “I kept thinking that if Lucas had told me what was going on, maybe I would have known whom to call.”

I was alone in Celeste’s conference room.

I stared at the blank screen for several minutes.

When Celeste returned, she found me with my head in my hands.

“You shouldn’t treat that statement as an invitation to contact her,” she said.