Chapter 4: The Press Conference

The evacuation center was a high school gym in Calabasas, full of cots, folding tables and families who had not slept.

Bruce stopped at the doors and let me go in alone.

"I'll be at the back," he said. "If you want me, look for the jacket."

I wore Hank's flannel over a borrowed shirt, with my hands wrapped to the wrist.

A stage had been built at the far end of the gym.

A blue Sentinel banner hung behind it, and a podium stood in front.

Four television cameras waited in the aisle.

Celia Rask walked to the podium in a cream suit with her hair in a low knot.

She had left the dog at home.

"Good morning," she said. "First, I want to say that the Sutton family grieves with every household on that ridge."

"Mr. Sutton could not be here today, because he is with the board, handling this personally."

Handling it.

I stood in the middle of the aisle and waited.

"Sentinel operated at full capacity," Celia said. "Every member who requested evacuation was evacuated."

"One client declined, twice, against our advice. We pray for her family, and we ask the press to give them privacy."

A reporter in the front row turned to look at the crowd.

She saw my hands first.

She said something to her cameraman.

A camera swung around and found me.

Celia saw the red light move, and she stopped reading.

"Gianna," she said into the microphone, kindly. "Sweetheart. This isn't the place."

"It is exactly the place," I said.

My voice carried farther than I expected.

Two hundred people in the cots had gone quiet.

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