Her editor, Chuck, stood over her desk, bald head gleaming under harsh fluorescent lights.
“Come with me,” he said.
Damn it.
Chuck did most of his work in the newsroom with the reporters, but he also had a closet-sized office with bare walls, a desk, and two chairs, which was where he led Emily. He squeezed his considerable bulk behind the desk, sat, and gestured for Emily to do the same. She couldn’t meet his gaze. She focused on his tie, blue with pinpoint yellow dots.
He rubbed his thick brown beard. “How much have you had?”
She shook her head.
“Are you drunk?”
Not drunk enough. Guilt tore at her, for the sobriety medallion gone from her purse zipper, for what she was doing to Mia. Such a sweet, trusting girl, she deserved better.
But only drinking made Emily forget the weight of Craig’s dead body, blood from the hole in his head dripping onto her cheek.
Play dead. Don’t move.
That woman had saved Emily’s life.
Emily didn’t even know her name.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy,” Chuck said. “You can do what you want at home, but there are no drugs or alcohol when you’re on the clock.”
“I know.”
He waited. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to give me? All right. You don’t leave me a choice. I have to suspend you for a week.”
That surprised her. “You can’t. It was just a little kick in my coffee.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But my investigation. I’m so close. I’ll have the story by Thursday. You can publish Sunday. No one else has this. It’ll be the scoop of the year!”
This time Chuck rubbed his bushy eyebrows, as if he had a headache. As if she were giving him one. “We’ve talked about this. You said you’d drop it. I know what you think happened on July Fourth, that a biological agent turned people into some kind of zombies—”
“Craig is not just people.”
“It’s not true. FBI, DEA, NSA, they all say the same thing. It was a hallucinogen.”
“It was real.”
“You imagined it, Emily.”
“They’re lying.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. You heard the audio I recorded.”
“It proved nothing. It was mostly screams and static. If we had Craig’s photos…”
“I don’t.”
“Then there’s no story.”
Not for the first time, Emily wished she had grabbed the camera when she’d been ushered from the center, but the bodies had terrified her. Her only thought had been to get to Mia and hug her daughter, and then get drunk. Just the one time.
“I don’t need the photos,” Emily said. “I have twenty interviews, at least, maybe more.”
“Let it go.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I have to find her!”
Emily jumped to her feet and yelled at her editor. Chuck also stood, not anger in his expression, but pity.
“Who?” he asked.
Emily’s voice was small. “The woman who saved my life. I’ve gone through all the agency files — the public ones, anyway — and checked with every government contact I have. I’ve talked to every survivor I can find. No one knows who she is, but I’m close to finding her. I know it.”
More beard rubbing. “Go home,” Chuck said.
Emily sank into her chair. The false story of the hallucinogen did a disservice to all who had died and survived that day. But part of her wondered: What if the story wasn’t false? What if she was wrong?
No, she couldn’t accept that. Because if Chuck was right, then she was losing her mind. “I’ll show you,” she said.
“Not this week. As of right now, you’re suspended. Use the time to get some help, all right? For your daughter’s sake, if nothing else. We’ll talk when you get back.”
Emily left to pick up Mia at day care. She pulled her old Ford Escort onto Market Street, headed out of Center City, and slammed down her hands on the steering wheel in anger.
“Damn it!” she yelled.
A week’s suspension. Really, it was a final warning. Zero-tolerance policy? Sure. Zero tolerance for the post-traumatic stress from living through a terrorist attack. Zero tolerance for survivor’s guilt. Why had she walked out while so many had not?
As she had stumbled from the Liberty Center that day, she had fixated on the shattered glass case around the Liberty Bell, what was left of it splattered with red.
Happy July Fourth, America. Here’s your freedom, drenched in blood.
A black SUV pulled in front of her just before a red light. She didn’t think anything of it until an identical one pulled in behind her. The light turned green, and the SUV in front didn’t move.
She laid into her horn.
The SUV still didn’t move. The one behind her had stopped so close, she couldn’t pull out and go around.
What was this?
Other drivers honked, drove around, flipped the bird.
A door opened on the back SUV. A hulking man in a T-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses walked to her Escort, a gun in a shoulder holster. He didn’t even try to hide that he was packing.
“Oh, God,” Emily said.
She fumbled in her purse for the mace she had taken to carrying since the attack, then thought better of it. She could spray him and run, but she couldn’t spray every person in two SUVs. She stuffed the canister into her pocket.
The man pressed a badge to her window. National Security Agency.
“Get out of the car, ma’am.”
The badge might be real, or not. She shut off her engine and cracked the window.
“Is something wrong?”
“Out of the car, please.”
His gun hung at her eye level, an implicit threat. She opened the door and got out.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“Someone wants to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Just come with me, ma’am.”
She went, and tried to not hyperventilate.
The SUV’s back seat was dark behind tinted windows. Emily slid onto the brown leather. A person sat beside her. Emily could make out only a silhouette.
“Hello, Ms. Grant.”
Emily gasped. She knew that voice.
Stay there. Play dead. Don’t move.
It was the Major.
“Buckle up,” the Major said.
Emily’s breath came quicker. Her heart jackhammered. She clicked her seat belt. The Major rapped the glass between the front and back seats, and the SUV moved.
“My car—”
“Will be fine until you get back.”
“I’m going back?”
“That depends on you.”
“You’re not NSA.”
A faint smile. “What makes you say that?”
“Your accent is British.”
“Let’s say I’m on loan.”
The SUV made a right turn. A blur of coffee shops, restaurants, stores, streetlights, trees, and pedestrians passed outside the tinted windows. A clink of metal drew Emily’s gaze to the Major’s lap, where she gripped a gun in a familiar way. As if she had been born holding it.
Emily shivered. “Why am I here?”
Suddenly, the Major was in Emily’s face. One second she had been across the seat; the next she forced Emily back until the door handle jabbed into her spine. The gun pressed into Emily’s side, colder than she had thought possible. Her muscles tensed so hard they hurt. She felt for the mace in her pocket, but who was she kidding? “We eat cornflakes for breakfast,” Craig had said. “She eats bullets.” Then she killed zombies for lunch. In a fight, Emily didn’t stand a chance.
“You’re asking questions,” the Major said.
“How do you know about that?”