Chapter 21: The Brass Plate

On Monday morning I went back to the building where I had lived for seven years.

I wore jeans and carried two empty boxes.

The doorman held the lobby door for me and did not meet my eyes, because he was ashamed of something he had known for eight months.

"Mrs. Barrow," he began.

"Winterton," I said.

"Ms. Winterton. I'm sorry."

"I know you are. Is Dexter upstairs?"

"He is on his way down, ma'am."

The elevator opened on the lobby.

Dexter stepped out with a cardboard box in his arms.

A man from building security walked at his side, and a second man followed, carrying a brass plate with his name on it.

DEXTER BARROW, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER.

It had come off his office door that morning, and he held the corners with both hands.

His tie was crooked, and he had not slept.

"Your key card, sir," the guard said.

Dexter stopped.

"This is ridiculous," he said. "I've been in this building for six years."

"Sir."

"I know the owner."

"That's him, sir," the guard said, and nodded at the glass doors.

Quinton stood outside on the sidewalk with his hands in his coat pockets, watching.

He did not come in.

Dexter looked at the box, and at the brass plate, and at the doorman and the porter and the girl at the front desk.

All of them were watching him.

Nobody looked away.

He set the box on the marble.

He took the key card out of his wallet with fingers that shook, and he put it in the guard's hand.

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