Page 121 of Boardroom Mask

I blink. Rae is looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“No idea,” I say. “Your boss is a weirdo.”

Rae doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t seem remotely reassured. But she unlocks the car and we get in. I crank the heat and the music and pretend everything is fine.

I get the feeling everything isnotfine, though.

Not fine at all.

48

JILLIAN

“When the violence causes silence / We must be mistaken”

— “Zombie” by The Cranberries

I was so sure he’d text me. All the way home from Westgate, while Rae drove and I pretended to nap in the passenger seat, I kept my phone in my hand under Kir’s coat, waiting for the buzz. But it never came.

Rae dropped me off outside my building with a hug and a worried look, then drove off to return the rental car. I trudged upstairs, changed, went to the gym, worked out, came back home, showered, made dinner, and… still nothing.

Now, it’s Sunday morning, and I’m starting to get concerned. I can’t get rid of the man for weeks, but now that I want to know what’s going on, he’s suddenly nowhere to be found. That’s the opposite of a good sign.

I keep going over and over the interaction in my head. It’s frustratingly sparse.Highly dangerous roads out here.What the hell kind of message is that? I’m about to start countingletters and doing Biblical numerology on what he said to find hidden meanings.

And then there’s theotherthing. The L-word thing. We haven’t discussed that and there are no signs that any such discussion is in our future. He just casually dropped that bombshell in the pouring, frigid rain and then left it to explode in my head.

Love. That’s the part that fucks everything up.

Understatement of the damn year. That fucks upeverything.If this was all some sort of insane but theoretically defensible form of sex exposure therapy, it’d be easy to say,Nice, mission accomplished,and then never have to see Kir again.Dr. Masked Stalker pronounces the patient cured.

But it’s so much more than that.

How much more? That remains to be seen.

I’ve given up pretending I’m going to have a normal Sunday. I shower, dress, and take the R train to the office. The only alternative to weekend work is sitting in my apartment refreshing a text thread that refuses to update, and I have no interest in that particular torture. Ergo, work it is.

The newsroom is unsurprisingly dull. It’s just a handful of weekend desk editors and one guy from Sports asleep at his keyboard. I slide into my cubicle, open my laptop, and pull up every document I have on Lazarev Global.

If Kir won’t talk to me, fine. I’ll work.

The forensic tech’s lab report is still in my bag. I spread it on the desk next to my notes from Kir’s background interview. There’s the autopsy report on Elena Lazareva, positively identified by dental records, and the new document confirming traces ofphenobarbital in the bone marrow. I’ve got it all in front of me, laid bare and obvious. The bottom line: A woman wanted to leave her tyrannical billionaire husband and ended up under a construction site in Astoria for eighteen years.

L-word or not, maybe running is the right move after all. There’s a very good argument to be made that the smartest thing I can do is finish this article, hand it to Doug, and cut myself loose from every thread connecting me to the Lazarev family.

Get the story out. Then get myself out. Clean, irreversible break.

But how can I do that, when it means leaving Kir behind?

I type for hours without stopping. By the time I’m done, it’s almost dark out. I save the draft, lock my laptop, and grab my coat. I’m the last one left. Even the Sports guy woke up and left at some point. I take the elevator down alone and step out into a cold Manhattan evening.

I decide to walk home despite the cold, mostly to keep my mind occupied. I regret the choice almost immediately, but Mama Pierce didn’t raise a quitter, so I grit my teeth and force myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. By the time I get to my building, I’m chilled to the bone. I start mounting the stairs, eagerly awaiting a hot shower and a thick, fuzzy blanket.

Which, of course, is when the power in the building predictably takes a shit.

I’m halfway to my floor when the lights go out. All of them, every single one. The stairwell goes pitch black.

Goddammit. Not again.