“I was under pressure.”
“You selected it from forty-two options.”
“Extended pressure.”
My phone buzzed again.
Not Ellie.
Sophie.
Conference room. Twenty minutes. Do not enter through lobby.
I showed Rachel.
“She knows we’re still in the car.”
“She also knows you’ll stop for food if she leaves room in the schedule.”
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“You ate half a bag of pretzels on the plane.”
“That was an aviation snack. It does not count on land.”
Rachel opened her tablet.
“There’s food at the office.”
“What kind?”
“Meeting food.”
“That sounds threatening.”
“It’s sandwiches.”
“Triangles?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll cooperate.”
The label office occupied four floors of a glass building where every wall contained either a platinum record or a photograph of someone pretending not to notice a platinum record.
Rachel led me through the underground entrance.
A security guard nodded.
Two assistants stopped talking when I passed.
My face appeared on a television mounted near the elevators.
Not the billboard face.
Market face.
The footage showed Ellie grabbing my hand and pulling me between the stalls while someone shouted my name.
