Her father hovers near the kitchenette. The officers can’t see him nodding encouragingly. He violated investigation protocol by telling her to leave the house after he found the body, the same way he’s interfering now. He’s trying to help her. Because he must suspect her. He’d be the worst police officer in the world if he didn’t. He’s protecting her by putting himself at risk.
All she wants is to go home. But the guilt over abandoning this man she barely knows unravels her a bit. She won’t let him put himself at risk for nothing. “My assistant, Noreen. That was on her key chain.”
“Oh,” Officer Middlebury says, her voice rising, “and is there a reason you’re so intimately familiar with your assistant’s keys?”
“In fact there is. I borrowed her car recently.” And now the source of her guilt switches to tossing Noreen under the bus—a figure of speech that conjures Ethan, and Mallory fights to cover her wince. “Accepted her car, more accurately.”
Officer Middlebury’s eyes flicker to Mack Weldon’s. She breaks character for the barest of seconds, but long enough for Mallory to see. Officer Middlebury is surprised.
“I’ve been a bit sore.” Mallory straightens her right leg. “Ooh,yep, still tender. Pickleball’s harder than they say.” She feels Aubrey’s leg begin to shake and places a hand on it. “Anyway, I think Noreen was just being overprotective. Wanting me to drive rather than walk. She even offered me a wheelchair the other day, remember, Aubrey?”
The sound of scratching fills the office as Mack Weldon drops his good cop act and takes notes.
Officer Middlebury sets her sunglasses on the coffee table. She braces her elbows on her thighs and leans in so far that Mallory can smell her perfume. Citrusy, orange, maybe, and the image of Officer Middlebury spritzing the air and darting beneath seems so absurd that Mallory has to bite the inside of her cheek.
“Let’s take this further,” the male officer says. “Go back to the car. When was—”
A flurry of movement and then a ball of orange fur lands in Mallory’s lap.
“Harley!” Noreen cries as she pushes open the office door. “I’m so sorry, y’all! David Copperfield’s got nothing on this one.”
Mallory laughs politely, Aubrey too, but no one else does—not even her father.
Noreen’s gait slows as she approaches the lounge area. She’s nervous, without even knowing she has every reason to be, thanks to Mallory’s efforts to divert attention from herself.
Mallory has no other choice. She can’t go to jail—bring Ilena and Aubrey with her. So she’s doing this? Actually doing this to Noreen?Shit, shit, shit.She needs to stall for real. To decide if she’s actually willing to go this far. Mallory pops up from the sofa, tucking Harley to her chest. “I’ll just get him settled.”
“Quickly,” Officer Middlebury says. “No holding his paw until he falls asleep, Ms. Latham.”
“Of course.” Mallory’s grip on Harley tightens.
With sure-footed steps to mask her inner trembling, Mallory carries Harley out of the office and falls into Noreen’s desk chair, black and hard, nothing like the custom-designed coral chairs with the AIM logo in their world.
“The door wasn’t fully shut.” Noreen closes it behind her now. “I’m so sorry.”
Spots gather before Mallory’s eyes. Did she hear?No, no, no, no, no.Mallory laughs some weird never-before-uttered hyena laugh, and she knows she’s losing it. Her sanity along with everything else. “Everyone loves dogs, don’t they?”
Noreen crouches as if to attend to the dog, but instead, she looks straight at Mallory, and this is it, this is the end.
“I couldn’t hear more than muffled words,” Noreen says. “How’s it going? Are you okay? If there’s anything I can do...”
Mallory blinks, trying to focus, looking past Noreen to see the crew fromThe Shandy Shane Showbeing led by Ella, who keeps tugging at bangs she clearly regrets getting. Ozzie, in the same shirt as the day before, points his long camera lens at the snack bar and rejuvenation rooms, and Mallory trails her fingers through Harley’s fur.
“Oh my,” Noreen says. “Ms. Latham, I promise I checked y’all’s calendar before confirming the, well...” She lowers her voice. “The officers.”
“No, yes, I’m sure,” Mallory mutters, remembering how her mom had distracted her as she’d been forwarding the producer’s email to Noreen. Had she never actually hit Send?
Her father pokes his head out of her office. “Breather, I get it. Truly, MallieMoo, it guts me that you have to do this. I’d do it for you in a heartbeat if I could.”
She wants to thank him, apologize to him, for not being the daughter he thinks he has, and maybe this too is one of those things that crosses universes—one of them may always be destined to disappoint the other.
“Ms. Latham?” Georgina walks toward Mallory as Ozzie trains his camera on the wall of photographs documenting the history of AIM. Mallory, Ilena, and Aubrey and those microgreen salads at the start-up program, at the endless string of coffee shops around Boston, at the cramped office space barely half a mile from here that smelled like feet and decomposing rats and faintly of yeast from the home brewery below it that Mallory never once missed before now.
Four years. That’s how long ago it was. Moving into this space was gradual. They had a quarter of a floor, then half, then the entire thing. And another. The square footage increased along with the number of employees, the original three of them now more than a hundred. They’d have gotten here without Grayson, Mallory doesn’t doubt that. But not as quickly. The same goes for this woman in front of her who wants to help, who has no idea that Mallory is in the process of betraying her.
Her father’s solemn eyes reach for Mallory’s. “The loss of Grayson is devastating, I know.”
Georgina stills. “Grayson Fields?”
