I sat in the cab watching her second-floor window with the heater running on low until the fuel gauge fell to a quarter tank.

The morning sky over East Dallas had gone deep indigo before I turned the key and drove west toward downtown.

At eight o’clock the elevator doors opened on the third floor of the Callahan Construction headquarters.

The smell of dark roast coffee and damp carpet filled the wide hallway, but the glass doors into the main administrative suite were locked.

Two guards in dark blue uniforms were standing right in front of my private office door.