Page 15

On the other hand, she didn’t want to appear as if she wasn’t aware of her surroundings. Damn, job interviews were always a minefield.

She took a few tentative steps toward the entrance, the crowd thick around a pair of EMTs loading something onto a stretcher, backs turned and heads down. As they pivoted, Alli caught a quick flash of the bulge of a black body bag, zipped tight.

Someone is dead.

It was all she could do not to turn on the heel of her navy blue pump and head right back to her car. All of this was not a good omen for the day. When it started out with death, where could it go from there?

Probably nowhere good.

“What happened here?” she heard herself say under her breath. Much to her surprise, it was the man to her left, a guy in khakis and a plaid tie, who answered.

“Leigh Gabler,” he said, voice flat. “I heard someone offed her.”

Alli wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. It sounded as if he’d said the poor dead victim this morning was Leigh Gabler, the elegant woman that she’d seen talking with Sam Winslow.

“What? Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. I got here even before the cops. It’s Leigh Gabler. She worked right under Joel, then under Sam after the heart attack. Someone must have followed her in.” He sounded almost satisfied, like he’d been waiting to share this with someone. “Sam found her this morning. You should have seen the mess. They covered her, but…” he made a vague gesture at his own scalp. “It was all up here. They must have hit her on the head.”

Alli’s mouth was suddenly dry, and her stomach was queasy. She was infinitely grateful she’d been too nervous to eat breakfast today.

“You think it was murder?”

She didn’t know much about Winslow Heights, but from what her brother had told her, there wasn’t much crime in this little university town.

Now there was a killer running around?

The man shrugged as if murder were an everyday occurrence.

“Who knows? They won’t let anyone use the elevators. Cops are talking to every employee. First time I’ve ever seen this place with actual drama,” he said, and drifted toward the lobby crowd, already eyeing another group to tell.

Alli stared at the ambulance as the doors slammed shut. She tried to process the word…murder. It didn’t land, not in the way it would on TV. Her brain kept coming back to the binder in her hands, the resume she’d printed on thick, off-white paper, the interview she’d prepped for in the car. Now, all of it felt less than trivial.

Her being unemployed didn’t mean a damn thing when a woman had died tragically today. Her problems were small.

I should just turn around and go home.

That poor woman. Nobody deserved to go out violently. If that was even how it happened. Plaid Tie Guy might not be telling the truth.

She hovered behind the crowd, debating whether to stay or go. To the left of the group, a man in a tailored blue suit stood with his back to her, talking to a uniformed officer. Even from the rear, there was something familiar about the build. Perhaps it was the set of his shoulders, or the way his hands were planted at his hips like he owned the floor.

He turned, just enough for the light to hit his face, and she knew him instantly.

Sam Winslow.

She’d seen him at Tate’s Tavern, laughing at the bar with his family, then later in the hallway, almost running her over on the way to the restrooms. Now, his face looked carved out of marble, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw set. His tie was crooked, and there was a faint stain on the cuff of his left sleeve. She wondered, for one idiotic second, if it was blood. Plaid Tie had said he’d found the body.

Sam’s eyes swept the crowd, then stopped on her. He looked at her face, then at the binder, then back at her face. His brow furrowed, not unkindly, but as if he was making a quick calculation. She looked away, but then looked back. His gaze didn’t budge.

It might be time to leave and go home.

Too late. He was striding directly toward her. There was no escape now.

He didn’t weave or hesitate, just crossed the distance and stopped two feet from her. His eyes took her in from top to bottom: face, blazer, binder, shoes. He didn’t bother hiding it.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi.”