Page 5 of Boardroom Mask

An anxious moment passes. Doug drums his fingers on the desk. “Or it’sexactlythe profile of someone who realized he was in over his head and decided to pull the ripcord.”

It takes all my willpower to shrug a casual shoulder. “Could be. I don’t think it is, but it could be.”

More tense waiting. Then he asks, “Have you filed a missing persons?”

I shake my head. “I’m not his family. And it’s only been four days. NYPD won’t do anything with that.”

“What about his family?”

“Dead and gone, the lot of them.”

Doug exhales through his nose. “Again, just to be sure I understand: Your one source on a story alleging that a vengeful billionaire is secretly a Russian mob boss who might’ve killed his wife is currently MIA.”

“That’s a painfully succinct and accurate summary, yes.”

He picks up a fat fountain pen and taps it against his palm a few times. He’s thinking. I know better than to interrupt him when he’s thinking.

“Alright,” he sighs finally. “Here’s what we’re gonna do: You keep digging. But quietly, goddammit, do you hear me? Don’t go knocking on either Lazarev’s door, don’t go poking around their offices, don’t do anything stupid.”

I give him a megawatt grin of pure, radiating innocence. “When have I ever done anything stupid?”

He gives me a silent look that could kill a bird right out of the air.

“Okay, fair,” I concede.

“Find Ochoa,” he continues. “That’s priority numero one. If your guy’s just spooked, talk him off the ledge and get him back on the record. If he’s gone for real...” He trails off and sheathes the pen back in the cup on his desk. “Well, then we’ve got a different kind of story, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “We do.”

“In the meantime, I need you to build this out from other angles. Financial records, property filings, corporate structure. Anything you can get through legitimate, legal channels that won’t get this paper sued into the Stone Age.”

“Got it.”

“And Pierce?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful with this one.” He picks up his coffee and takes a long slurp. “I mean that.”

“I’m always careful, Doug.”

“No, you’re not,” he retorts. “That’s why I said it.”

I leave the building late in the evening with a fresh coffee buzz and a renewed sense of purpose. Doug’s blessing, grudging as it was, is all I needed. I’ve got a story. I’ve got a lead. I just need to find my missing source.

And I’m very good at finding things.

The November air assaults me as I push through the revolving doors and out onto the streets. I pop my headphones in and crank my Spotify Discover Weekly loud enough to drown out the city. First track up is Megan Thee Stallion, bright and bubble-gum poppy, and it’s exactly the right pick.

My mood has done a complete one-eighty from where it started the day. The Man on the Train feels distant now, and silly. A blip.I was tired this morning and my brain filled in the gaps with worst-case scenarios. That’s all. I’ll never see that creep again.

Why tourists insist on walking in a shoulder-to-shoulder, horizontal line across the sidewalk at the speed of continental drift remains one of life’s mysteries to me. I speed-walk around them and, without breaking stride, duck the outstretched arm of the guy dressed like Captain America trying to cajole me for a picture.

“Ay, Red! Smile for me! You’re way prettier when you smile!” some loser guy catcalls from the corner as I mercifully escape the death trap that is Times Square.

I make the light at Seventh, nearly get clipped by a bike messenger running the red, and flip him off without missing a beat.

I’m halfway down my block when I pass a couple huddled together on the stoop of a brownstone. Her cold-reddened face is tucked against his neck and his arms are wrapped around her like he’s trying to keep out the whole November night. They’re not doing anything. Just sitting there, tangled up, existing in each other’s space. She says something I can’t hear and he laughs, quiet and easy, and pulls her closer.