Chapter 19: At the Door

The firm's holiday party was in the atrium off the lobby, with a tree three stories high and a hundred and ten people in their good clothes.

I came out of the stairwell door with Annie at my side and my heart still going.

Behind us two officers walked Jocelyn between them, with her hands cuffed in front of her.

She had put her coat on over the cuffs.

Nobody noticed her at first.

The string quartet was playing something soft, and the third floor was holding paper cups of cider and laughing about the raffle.

Then the quartet stopped, one instrument at a time.

A woman from accounting turned her head and said, "Is that Jocelyn?"

The sound went out of the atrium.

A hundred and ten faces turned toward the general counsel of Bancroft & Kingscote, in a black dress and a winter coat, with a detective at her elbow.

Jocelyn lifted her chin.

She had never in her life walked through a room with her head down, and she did not begin now.

"This is a misunderstanding," she said clearly. "My lawyers will have this cleared by morning."

"Ma'am," the detective said, "keep walking."

She walked.

Past the raffle table. Past the tree. Past the long glass wall where, on a Monday in October, I had stood and watched a girl's latte hit the floor.

The guard from that morning stood by the revolving door.

He looked at Jocelyn, and then at me.

He was the man who had pulled the swipe log the first day. He opened the door for them and stood very straight.

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