Allen was quiet for a moment. "Just be careful, okay? I know you're helping out, but you're not as young as you used to be. Don't push yourself too hard."
Kate felt a flash of irritation once again, then let it go. Allen wasn't wrong. She was nearly sixty years old, and the physical demands of fieldwork were harder than they used to be. Her body reminded her of that fact every morning when she got out of bed.
"I don't need the reminder," Kate said, but there was warmth in her voice.
"Yes you do. You never think about your own limitations until you're already past them."
"That's not… entirely true.”
Allen chuckled and said, “Okay, okay. Go solve your case and come home at a reasonable hour. Michael wants to show you his bandage."
"Tell him I'll be home for dinner."
"I will. Love you."
"Love you too."
Kate ended the call and stood at the window for another moment, looking out at the city. Allen knew her too well. He knew she would get pulled into this case deeper than she intended, that she would push herself harder than she should. But he also trusted her to know her own limits.
Most of the time, anyway.
She checked the time on her phone. She had been in the break room for almost fifteen minutes, long enough for Sloane to have started on those alibi verifications. Kate should get back and help, even if she was convinced Mitchell was innocent. Sloane was right about procedure, about doing things by the book. Kate might have decades of experience, but that didn't mean she could skip the fundamentals. She left the break room and headed back through the building toward Sloane's cubicle. The irritation from earlier had faded, replaced by something closer to resignation. This was what she had signed up for when she agreed to help DeMarco. Working with a younger agentmeant sometimes being reminded that she wasn't in charge anymore.
Kate could handle that. She had handled worse.
She turned the corner and saw Sloane's cubicle up ahead, the younger agent visible through the opening as she worked at her laptop. Kate took a breath and headed toward her, ready to help verify alibis she was certain would check out… and to do a better job of letting Sloane lead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Susan Hayes finished the last bite of her banana and dropped the peel into the small waste basket beside her desk. The salad bowl from lunch sat empty next to her laptop, and she made a mental note to take it back to the main house before she forgot about it. Her home office tended to accumulate dishes if she wasn't careful.
She returned her attention to the contract on her screen, reading through the terms one more time before sending it to the client. Leadership transition consulting had turned out to be more lucrative than she had ever imagined. In the eighteen months since launching Hayes Consulting Group, she had worked with six major corporations and had three more contracts pending. Her main office downtown was professional and polished, perfect for client meetings. But this space at the back of her house was where she did most of her actual work.
The office had its own entrance from the side yard, which meant clients could come and go without disturbing her family. Not that there was much family to disturb anymore. Her husband traveled for work more often than not, and her daughter was away at college. Most days, Susan had the house to herself.
She saved the contract and pulled up the business plan she had been revising earlier that morning. The document outlined her services, her pricing structure, and her unique approach to helping companies navigate periods of executive change. It was a solid plan, one that had proven successful in practice.
But looking at it now, Susan felt that familiar twinge of guilt in her chest.
She had first heard concepts like these discussed in the Second Act Success program two years ago. Not this exactapproach, but similar ideas about identifying corporate pain points and positioning yourself as the solution. Crawford had walked them through case studies of successful consulting businesses, had shown them how to package their expertise into marketable services.
Susan closed the business plan and leaned back in her chair. She had developed her own unique approach. She had taken what she learned in the program and built on it, added her own experience from twenty years in corporate human resources, created something that was entirely hers. The guilt was unnecessary. Lots of people learned concepts in training programs and then applied them in their own ways.
That was how business worked.
She stood up and stretched, feeling the stiffness in her lower back from sitting too long. The office was small but comfortable, with built-in bookshelves on one wall and a window that looked out over her backyard. The afternoon sun filtered through the trees, creating patterns of light and shadow on the hardwood floor.
She was reaching for her phone to check the time when the doorbell rang.
She paused, surprised. She wasn't expecting anyone, and most people who came to see her professionally used the main downtown office. It was very rare than any clients or soon-to-be-clients came to her home office.
The doorbell rang again, more insistent this time. Susan walked through the small hallway that connected her office to the main house. She could see a figure through the frosted glass of the side door, the one that led directly to her office entrance. A woman, from what she could tell, though the glass distorted the details.
She opened the door and found a woman standing on the small concrete landing outside. She appeared to be in her lateforties or early fifties, with dark hair that hung loose around her shoulders. She wore jeans and a simple sweater, and she held her purse in front of her with both hands like a shield.
"Can I help you?" Susan asked.
"You’re Susan Hayes, right?" the woman asked. Her voice was quiet, almost timid.
