PART 5

Joan called me to her office on a Friday after lunch.

She sounded calm, which I had learned meant the information was important enough that she had already checked it twice.

I left Owen with Dana and took the bus downtown, clutching a notebook on my knees while office towers slid past the windows.

A woman named Celia Price sat across from Joan when I arrived.

She had cropped gray hair, a canvas bag, and the careful posture of someone accustomed to being blamed for decisions made above her.