“You guys can’t air this,” I said. “You don’t know anything, and you don’t have any footage, right?”

Silence. I’d hit it. How ironic. I’d had such a conversation hundreds of times, but I’d never cared so much about the decision we made. Usually, C.J. called me and asked if they could run a story that was thin. If it was based on rumors and suppositions, if there was no one to interview to make it a solid story, I told them no. Pickett Enterprises was the cleanest of companies, and we didn’t want the threat of a slander suit.

“You’re not getting an interview or a confirmation from me,” I said. “Mostly because I don’t have anything to give. I really don’t know a thing. This is an ambush, and I’m not taking it. But also, as your lawyer, you can’t run this story.”

Now, I was bringing personal stuff into my work, something lawyers were always warned against, but I also knew I couldn’t let Sam be tried and found guilty by the press before we really knew what he’d done.

C.J. looked pissed. “Someone else is going to run with it.”

“Have you heard that?”

“No, I’m just saying. Eventually. Eventually, some other station or paper is going to cover it.”

I looked from C.J. to Jane and back again. It was funny that Jane was the beauty, the face, the person everyone in Chicago knew. It was C.J. with the brains and the brawn. Unlike most of the newscasters who wrote their own stories, writing had never been Jane’s strong suit, and as she worked her way up to anchor, she chased the stories, and she conducted the interviews, but she left the writing and the fighting to C.J.

I stood up. “You have a broadcast to do. Good luck.”

Jane scrambled to stand with me. “Thanks for coming, Izzy.” She gave me another guilty smile. “I did want to talk to you about that contract. I wanted to tell you I’m signing it.”

“Good. And please do me a favor. As friends. Tell me if you learn anything. If you’ve got solid information, I won’t stop you from covering the story, but I need you to give me a heads-up.”

Jane looked at C.J., who bit her lip. “Yeah, we’ll do it,” C.J. said.

I left the dressing room and walked through the newsroom. I’d always been struck by how vivid the anchor desk looked on air, and yet when you pulled back, you saw so much shadowy emptiness around it, so much messiness in the form of wires and lights and people. Was the same true of Sam? Had I been using a zoom lens, focusing only on the image of him that I saw and wanted, without ever really looking at the dark chaos surrounding him?

I felt numb as I took a cab to Old Town. The people on the streets seemed full of levity, zest. I was flattened by the questions about Sam and me that kept reverberating in my head, ones I couldn’t find the right answers for. Should Sam’s absence call into question whether the love I thought we had was ever there to begin with?

As lawyers, we take very seriously something called precedence-that which came before and which, in large part, dictates the future. We study laws that were written before and cases that were decided before, and as long as there is a precedent, there’s a good chance it’s true in the future, as well.

I had to keep reminding myself that Sam and I had precedence. I had doubted the wedding, yes, but never the love. Which meant that love, or whatever you want to call it, had been real then. That was precedent. Therefore we were still real at this moment. We must be.

And yet. And yet. It had been days now since Sam disappeared, and when I thought about that fact, our precedence seemed flimsy. How could Sam and I have been as wonderful as I’d believed if he’d simply taken off with thirty million dollars of Forester’s property apparently with no thought to me or my feelings?

I got out of the cab by Twin Anchors, an ancient corner barbecue joint. The place glowed with golden lights from within, and something about it drew me to the windows, made me gaze inside. People sat laughing at the bar, or stood behind it with mugs of beer, waiting for a table. Everyone looked happy. Everyone looked normal.

I glanced behind me and saw a guy ambling slowly toward me. Too slowly. Almost as if he didn’t want to reach me. He was short, wearing a tan jacket, zipped up part of the way. His hands were in his pockets, but his elbows jutted out at his sides, as if he was trying hard to appear nonchalant but was really ready for a fight. His hair was black and wavy.

Run! That voice insisted. But this was my neighborhood and being followed was fast becoming an annoyance, so I stood my ground.

When he saw me watching him, he slowed even more, the elbows jutting out farther. And then, casually, he turned and disappeared down one of the tiny side alleys.

Get out of here, Izzy.

I hurried to my house, my shoes loud on the pavement. I dug in my bag for my keys. A car slowly passed my building. It was a Honda. Gray. The same car Maggie had seen outside the FBI office.

The car passed under a streetlight and although I couldn’t see the face of the driver, I saw the license plate. Illinois. I memorized the number and repeated it in my head as the car disappeared down the street.

I hurried up the stairs. Call Mayburn, call Mayburn, I thought.

I reached the door, and as soon I put my key in the dead bolt, I knew something even more was wrong.

I knew someone had been inside my condo.

26

My pulse throbbed in my head. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight. Is he home? Is Sam home?

Sam usually left the dead bolt unlocked and simply locked the doorknob on his way out of the condo. And now the dead bolt was unlocked. I pushed the dead bolt key to the left again. And then again to make sure. Definitely unlocked, and I was positive I had locked it when I left home this morning. I always did. The fact that Sam often didn’t annoyed me.

You’re on the third floor, he said, and you need a key to get inside the main door. Don’t worry about it.

But I did. I was a relatively new home owner, and I wanted to protect my castle.

I’d finally gotten Sam trained-mostly-by guilting him about it. How will you feel when someone breaks in and attacks me? I said, joking.

He locked the dead bolt after that, unless he was in a hurry. But here it was, unlocked.

I found the key for the doorknob and shoved it in the slot, opening it.

It was dark inside.

I reached to the right and found the light switch, flipping it on and bathing the condo in soft, recessed lighting.

No one. No Sam.

But, but…An intangible feeling gripped me, a sense that another person had been in my house. My eyes roamed, searching for confirmation, but everything seemed in order. The pulse in my head quickened, beating at my temples.

I went to the bedroom and stood in the doorway. I reached for the lamp on the dresser just inside the door. A dress and skirt lay on the bed, where I’d left them this morning. Nothing seemed out of place.

I walked back through the kitchen and to the office. The computer was off, as usual. I always shut down the computer after I used it, a habit I’d gotten from Q. He swore computers needed sleep like humans. But something in the office felt moved or disturbed. I let my gaze search the place. Files I’d brought home Monday night-only three days prior; how far away that seemed-still sat piled next to the desk. The photo of Sam and me in Puerto Vallarta sat to the right of the computer. In it, we looked sun-kissed and ecstatic. I studied the picture for a second, trying to discern signs of unhappiness in him, some signal of unease I’d previously missed. I saw nothing.

I sat down at the desk and immediately noticed it-a faint static around the monitor, the same slight crackling sound it made when it had been recently turned off. My hand shot to the hard drive on the floor. Sure enough, it was warm. I hadn’t used it since last night. It should have been cool to the touch.