Chapter 21: What Jocelyn Gets

By Sunday noon Winslow had a plan, a bank officer on the phone, and a cup of coffee he had forgotten to drink.

The house on the north shore was Vivian's.

It was also collateral, and a lender with default notices in its hand may inspect what it holds.

Ten o'clock, Monday morning, with the CFO and a deputy.

At six-thirty on Monday morning the Tower doorman called my cell.

"Miss Sorrell, I'm sorry to trouble you. It's Miss Vandenberg. She's in the lobby."

I had a house to be at by ten.

I went to the Tower first.

Jocelyn sat on a marble bench in the lobby with her suitcase beside her.

She had been there since six and had refused the doorman's offer of coffee.

She wore the white pantsuit from the roof, creased, with the knees gone gray.

Her ponytail was neat.

Everything else about her was a woman who had slept in a car.

She stood when I came through the revolving door.

Behind the front desk, a young clerk with a headset slid half a step to the left to see better.

"I won't take long," Jocelyn said.

"You have the length of this lobby."

"I need a job."

I said nothing.

"Not a big one. Brand. Marketing, social, anything." Her voice had lost the coo.

"I'm good at it. Everyone knows it. I made that company's name, and I know where every photograph is."

"You told me on Saturday you wanted nothing."

"I didn't want money. I wanted," she stopped, and swallowed, "I wanted not to be what I was in that room."

"What were you?"

"A girl who watched."

Two bellmen had stopped with their luggage cart.

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