Chapter 16: Mrs. Tunstall

Avery's POV

By nine the steps of Tunstall Tower were full.

Reporters stood three deep behind a rope, with phones held up and microphones on poles.

Behind them, on the lobby side of the glass, I could see the whole of floor nine pressed against the doors.

Vicki held my elbow.

"We can go in through the garage," she said. "I looked it up."

"I'm not using the garage."

"I knew you'd say that. I'm holding your bag, so you can be dramatic with both hands."

I climbed the first step.

A man shouted, "Ms. Collins! Is it true you took the job to trap Nolan Tunstall?"

A woman shouted, "How many weeks along are you?"

Someone else called, "Who's the father?"

I stopped on the fourth step and turned around, so that I stood above them all with my hand on my stomach.

The noise dropped.

"I'm Avery Collins," I said. "I'm twenty-eight, and I'm seven months pregnant."

My voice shook, so I breathed and said it again, more slowly.

"The father is my husband. His name is Nolan Tunstall."

I swallowed.

"We were married at the Cook County courthouse four months ago, with a clerk and a stranger for witnesses."

A reporter in the front row dropped his pen.

Behind the glass, the floor-nine staff stared.

A woman from accounts had her hand over her mouth.

"You can check," I said. "It's a public record."

"Then why keep it secret?" the woman shouted.

"Because he asked me to, until a vote that was supposed to be Friday."

I gripped the rail.

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