″Her daughter′s alive but still in the hospital. In fact, I need to head back over there to be with her. I guess I′m not thinking straight-I can′t even remember why I came in here right now.″

My voice dissolved into something dangerously close to a sob. It′s always been a point of pride with me never to cry in front of my colleagues. But Jana′s murder and the abysmal phone call with Jonathan had spun my world on its axis. I felt spent and dangerously off-kilter. The floodgates of emotional hell had swung wide open, and the devil dogs were on the loose.

Crystal must have heard the SOS in my voice, because suddenly she also materialized in the opening to my cubicle. ″Time for a confab in the ladies′ room,″ she said, shooing Frank away. ″Let′s go.″

We retreated to the ultimate sanctuary-the handicapped stall in the women′s restroom.

″Tell me about what′s going on, sweetie,″ she said. ″Is it about your friend? I heard there was a carjacking overnight. I know that must be upsetting. ″

Crystal unwound a length of toilet tissue and handed it to me. In moments of stress, Crystal has a calm, maternal side that′s oddly comforting. You feel like you could lean your head against her shoulder and cry your eyes out, and everything would be better.

″Yes, my friend Jana died. But there′s a lot more going on,″ I said, finally yielding to the sob. ″It′s Jonathan. I know it′s stupid to be upset about a guy when someone has died…″

″Nothing′s stupid when it comes to love, honey.″

″I caught Jonathan in bed with his wife this morning. According to her, they′re still married.″

″His what? His wife?″ Crystal looked confused. ″Wait-how did you catch them in bed together? I thought Jonathan was in the UK.″

″He is. It was over the phone. He sounded completely weird when I called him, and then his ex-wife-or maybe they′re still married. I don′t know, she called herself his wife-grabbed the line. Gi′s her name. She said they were f-f-fucking like l-l-love bunnies.″

″And they′re still married?″

″That′s what she said.″

″Well, don′t believe every woman who grabs a phone away from a man. But if he really was in bed with her, he should rot in hell.″ Crystal wrapped me in a hug. ″Oh, honey, I′m so sorry. Go ahead and let it out.″

″I wish Jonathan was right here, right now, just so I could peck out his eyeballs bit by bit, like a bird. I′d peck them out.″ I formed a pair of pincers with my fingers to demonstrate what I′d do to Jonathan.

″It sounds like there′s a pair of balls on the other end of him you should peck off first,″ Crystal said, her tone dry. ″Anyway, eye pecking is something you should definitely do in the privacy of home. That′s what I always do when I find out my man′s a rat. And I′ve had more than a few.″

″You have?″ I said, blowing my nose loudly into the tissue. ″It′s so hard to believe that Jonathan′s a rat. You know him, Crystal. He′s always been so perfect, such a gentleman to me. How can he be a rat?″

″Well, man-rats don′t all have whiskers and red, beady little eyes,″ Crystal said, wrinkling her nose like a mouse. ″It′s the sweet, gorgeous men like Jonathan that can really hurt you bad.″

″This is more than hurt,″ I said, perching in a doubled-over sitting position on the edge of the toilet. ″This feels like something′s changed in my DNA… like my cell structure is going haywire. Pardon me a second…″

The wrenching stomach pain had come back, worse than before. Abruptly, I dropped to my knees on the cool tile floor and turned to face the toilet. Then I threw up again. This time all I could manage was weak-sounding, raspy little heaves.

″Sorry,″ I gasped and spat into the bowl. ″This is so unbelievably humiliating.″

″We′ve all totally been there, honey. Let me take you home,″ Crystal said. ″You need to get some rest.″

″Can′t,″ I said, shaking my head. ″My friend′s daughter needs me at the hospital. Her family hasn′t gotten here yet.″

″Well, just remember you need to take care of yourself,″ Crystal said. ″You′re not in good shape yourself. That′s a heavy load you′re carrying around right now.″

As she gave me soothing pats, she said, ″Men. Sometimes I want to just ship ′em all off to Alaska. Put them out to pasture with the moose.″

Before I escaped from the newsroom, I had to endure one more blow to my system. When I returned to my cubicle, I saw that someone had dropped something on my desk. A photo.

The five-by-seven-inch picture showed an enormously obese woman. She must have been at least four or five hundred pounds and was mostly naked, with giant, dimpled thighs and layers of flesh that stretched from her chin to her ankles. Though it was almost hidden among the overlapping layers of hanging fat, you could see that she was wearing a bikini. That image alone was grotesque enough. But that′s not all there was.

Across the fat lady′s distended stomach, in jagged strokes of a black Sharpie, someone had scrawled two words:

Kate Gallagher

Chapter 15

As I stared down at the grotesque image of the fat lady in the photograph, my scalp prickled with humiliation. Was that fat-lady picture-with my name on it-somebody′s sick idea of a practical joke? Who could possibly want to hurt me like that? Who could be so vicious?

A vision of Lainey′s angry face from the night before floated through my head.

Lainey. Of course. Frank had told me that she blamed me for keeping her from getting her precious carjacking story. Who else could it have been?

I thought back on Jumpy Rob′s smirk as he mentioned my story′s ″money shot″-aka me in a bikini. Was the entire newsroom secretly laughing at me? When the story aired, would the entire city make fun of me? The thought made me feel like throwing up again. At this rate, I wouldn′t have to worry about dieting-the way I was barfing all over the place, I was well on my way to becoming bulimic.

Well, at least I didn′t need to worry about Jonathan′s reaction to my body in the story anymore. That dog in my heart had already died.

I tossed the disgusting photo into the trash. Then I put in a call to Luke Petronella to see what was going on in the investigation into Jana′s murder. I didn′t have his cell phone number, but I reached him at his desk at the Durham police headquarters.

Luke said they were following up on a theory that a gang called the M Street Crew was connected to the carjacking.

″We′ve arrested a suspect who had some blood spatter on him-if it′s Jana′s blood, that′ll be enough to tie him to the carjacking,″ he said. ″And if we′re really lucky, her daughter, Shaina, will be able to identify him from a photo lineup.″

An image of the window and Jana′s head being shattered with a gun swam into my head.

Pushing the vision away, I said, ″Shaina told me she thinks her stepfather was behind it. And I heard that Jana left him two million dollars in life insurance.″

I expected Luke to dismiss Shaina′s suspicion about her stepfather the way Dr. Sanders had.

But he didn′t. ″We′re looking into that,″ he said. ″We know about Jana′s insurance policy. But so far this case is looking like a straightforward carjacking, not a Black Widower job.″

″But do you know about Gavin′s first wife-that she died under suspicious circumstances?″