The sweat trickled from my hairline and into my eyes.

I tried to blow my hair away from my face. Fffff, ffff, the upward shot of air did nothing to move it. I tried again and again, but my hair was sticking to my forehead now. The goddamned hard drive kept slipping around in my fingers.

Then finally it snapped into place. Now I just had to get the metal cover back on and the four panels. I looked at the debris on the desk. The panels were all lying there haphazardly, the screws strewn about. I couldn’t remember which screws went with which panels.

“Fuck,” I said.

Sweat dripping onto the components, I got the metal sheet on, and managed to figure out which screws held it in place. I lifted my arm and wiped my face with my sleeve. Just ignore the sweat, I told myself. Think of all the detoxification and weight loss benefits.

The panels were next. They were like puzzle pieces-all vaguely resembling each other, but none of them the exact same shape. I managed to get two on quickly, but the last two were impossible. Neither seemed to fit right. My hands, slimy under the gloves, kept trembling and slipping.

And then I heard voices in the kitchen. The thought of how close I was to getting caught shifted me into another mode. Get it together, I barked to myself harshly.

I didn’t try to discern what the voices in the kitchen were saying. I ignored the sense that they were getting a little closer. I didn’t think about the fact that I was probably starting to develop severe pit stains. I got the panels into place, tried one screw and then another and then another, working systematically until I’d secured both panels into place.

The voices were in the hall now, then one died away and all I heard was one set of footsteps.

Then suddenly the doorbell rang and the footsteps stopped, sounded as if they were going the other way. The break gave me just the time I needed.

Turning the laptop over, I plugged in the power cord. I pulled off my latex gloves, shoved them into my pockets again.

Heavy footsteps came from the hallway. They weren’t Lucy’s.

“Can I help you?” I heard Michael say.

I turned with a calm smile on my face. I heard Mayburn’s words-That’s the number-one ticket to a successful cover-believing every word of it. No stumbling with your words, no embarrassment, just be confident about it and don’t flinch. But he’d never said anything about how to handle a spectacular bout of flop sweating.

“I’ve wanted this laptop for months,” I said. “Is it the new model?”

Michael DeSanto took two steps into his office, his eyes sweeping the room. “Yeah. It is,” he said in a cold, angry voice. Then he looked at my face. It was wet. I could feel that much. And I knew from the sheer heat that I was probably a lovely plum color. And yet I was determined to act as if there was nothing wrong.

“Sorry to be in your office,” I said. “Lucy had given me the tour earlier, and I’ve been dying to see how heavy this is.” I picked the laptop up and put it down again. “It’s big, but you could definitely travel with it.” I was relieved to find that my blush was somehow fading away as I went a hundred percent with the bold lying.

DeSanto took a few steps and touched the computer. I could tell he was touching it to see if it was warm, if I’d turned it on. He nodded slightly when the computer was cold. If he had touched me, he wouldn’t have gotten the same result.

“You okay?” he said, a suspicious voice, a wary stare.

Although the sweat was receding, I was still positively glistening. “Great, great. I’ve got to get going.”

But he didn’t move. And he’d given me no room to stand from the chair, which had high leather arms on either side. He’d trapped me.

Michael stared down at me, his face impassive, those light brown eyes never wavering from mine, trying to see inside me, it seemed.

I tried to hear Mayburn’s words in my head, but they were fading. I felt the sweat start running again under my arms.

“Anyway, I should go,” I said.

Still he didn’t move. Still he stared at me with those translucent eyes.

My pulse picked up again. Finally I stood up, fast, and he took a step back. “I should get going. I’ll just grab Kaitlyn.”

I left the office in what I hoped appeared to be a calm walk. In my head, I was yelling, Run, run, run. The sweat started again and ran in rivulets down my back.

I went down the stairs, where Lucy was laughing and officiating some kind of game between Kaitlyn, Noah and Eve. She looked so much happier here with the kids, away from her husband.

I grabbed Kaitlyn’s coat from the floor and tugged it on her. “We have to leave. Thank you for everything, Lucy. I just remembered a doctor’s appointment I have to get her to.”

Lucy’s face went concerned, whether from my quick exit or the fact that I looked as if I’d jumped into a swimming pool and quickly thrown my clothes back on, I couldn’t tell. “Everything all right?” she said.

“Of course. Just a usual checkup with…” What in the heck did you call a children’s doctor? Suddenly I couldn’t recall.

As I hustled Kaitlyn up the stairs, she promptly began to bawl. “Thanks, Lucy, for everything,” I called over my shoulder. I felt terrible leaving her like that.

I stopped short at the top. Michael blocked my way once more, standing still, looking down.

Don’t stop, don’t stop, I said to myself. I nudged myself and a sobbing Kaitlyn past him and didn’t look back. I got outside the front door and through the courtyard, when I realized we were locked in.

I tugged at the huge brass knocker on the wood door to the street. My hands were wet, slipping on the knocker, and it didn’t budge. Kaitlyn wailed. What had I just done? I’d possibly put a child in danger, while I’d illegally made a duplicate hard drive of a reputed mob figure.

I looked over my shoulder and there was Michael DeSanto, staring at me from the front door with his transparent eyes.

We gazed at each other for seconds that seemed years. Finally, he reached a hand out, the buzzer on the door sounded and the door swung open without a sound.

I hustled Kaitlyn down the street. “You’re all right. You’re all right,” I crooned to her as much as to myself.

Strapping her into the car seat, my hands started violently trembling. In the front seat, I put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. When I got to the next corner, I pulled over, put my head on the steering wheel, and then I cried just as hard as Kaitlyn.

61

When Mayburn got to my place, I buzzed him in and left the front door to my apartment open.

“Izzy?” I heard him call a minute later.

“In here,” I yelled from my bedroom, my hands deep in a suitcase.

I heard him step into the bedroom. “What are you doing?”

“Packing for Panama.”

“We went through this already.”

“Yes, we did, but that was before all this.” I went to my dresser top and picked up the mass of cords and boxes that was the Logicube, Write Blocker and external hard drive. I shoved it in his hands.

“Something go wrong?”

“Depends on how you look at it.” I went to my closet, rifled to the back, where I stored my summer clothes, and grabbed a few dresses. I had no idea how I was supposed to pack for Panama City, Panama. What was the weather like? How did people dress? I had no time for research.

All of a sudden, something dawned on me. “Will the feds have my passport flagged?”

“I doubt it,” Mayburn said. “They can’t flag the passport of every potential witness in every investigation they have.”

“Good.” I kept packing.

I could hear Mayburn fiddling with the Logicube and the external hard drive. “You know how nervous I was having you in that house by yourself?” he asked.

I was in the process of grabbing some T-shirts from a drawer, but I stopped. “You were nervous? You know what I went through in there?”