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KIT
MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017
The moment I step through our office doors on Monday morning, I feel the same way Alice must have when she walked in on the Mad Hatter and the March Hare having the tea party. All activity on the floor stops. Jeremy stares at me as though he’s seen a three-headed frog.
“Kit!” George rushes over to me. “What areyoudoing back?”
“You guys need me.” I nervously stuff my key card back in my purse. “Is that all right?”
“Of course, of course.” George follows me as I unlock my office door and walk inside. “I just didn’t want to push you to come back until you were ready.” His gaze slides to the big window that overlooks the street. A few reporters have followed me here. I don’t know what they expect. If I haven’t talked to them yet, what makes them think I’m going to change my mind and suddenly give a statement?
My office has a dusty smell as though it’s been shut for weeks. I can feel my boss watching me. I’ve ignored his calls and e-mails, even the ones about work matters, which mostly had to do with such-and-such donor pulling out because of the hack news. That’snot like me. Kit Manning-Strasser is on point in her job, even in a crisis.
It was Willa who urged me to come back. Create some normalcy again, she said. Even if you stare at your computer for six hours, doing nothing, it’ll get easier with each passing day. Willa said she’d take care of the girls, grocery shopping, and even moving us back into my house, if forensics ever finishes up. Not that I’m sure I want to move back. I’m not sure I can ever go into my kitchen again.
George updates me on some of the pressing hack scandals that most threaten donor support. I offer to make some calls, assuaging the benefactors’ fears and persuading them not to back out of their financial commitments. “You realize they may want to know how you’re holding up,” he says carefully. “Quite a few of them are... curious.”
A muscle in his cheek jumps. Is he trying to tell me that a lot of the donors suspect I’m the killer? But the donors are smarter than that. And besides, if I were bad for business, George would have had a conversation with me about it last week. Suggest I take some time off, maybe. He isn’t the type who beats around the bush.
Then George says he has a meeting to get to, adding with a crinkly smile that it’s “really good to have you back, Kit.”
I settle into my desk. My computer is functional again—the Aldrich servers have finally been restored. The IT specialists still haven’t figured out how to take down the hack database, but at this point it’s moot, because the link has been replicated and reposted by a bunch of other sites like Snopes and Open Secrets. I launch my e-mail app, feeling a rush of holy-shit fear. Can I really do this? I’ve just buried my second husband, a murder happened in my house, the whole world knows that my dead husband had an affair, and a man I made out with is married to my coworker. Am I really going to keep it together?
My phone rings. The caller ID reads,Unknown. A reporter? Various news outlets are dying to get an interview with me because of Greg.
I let it go to voice mail. After a moment, I press the little triangle to play it, and some static noises crackle through the speaker. After about ten seconds, someone sighs. The hair on the back of my neck rises. Do I know that sigh? Is that Patrick?
Forget him,I tell myself.He’s married to your coworker. Stop thinking about him.
My phone rings again. This time, I see my dad’s landline number. One of my daughters, probably.
I pick up the receiver. “Sienna? Everything okay?”
“Actually, it’s Willa.”
My sister’s gravelly voice makes me sit taller in my chair. “Oh. Hey.”
“How’s work going?”
“I just got here,” I remind her. “I haven’t really done anything yet.” I idly navigate to Facebook, though that’s a mistake. My feed is full of both GregIn Memorymessages and a few hundred reposts of Greg’s e-mails to Lolita. “How are the girls?”
“Well, they haven’t come downstairs, even when I knocked.” Then she clears her throat. “Maybe they should go back to school.”
“They’re still so shell-shocked.”
“I wonder if it would be better for them if they went back. They’ll be around friends. Classes will take their minds off things.”
Out the window, a siren wails. I twist away from the noise. “Just because you convinced me to go back to work doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for them.”
“I was serious when I said they’ve been off since this happened.”
I ball up my fist. “What do you mean,off?”
“Don’t you think they’ve been acting sort of weird? Distant? Kind of... cold?”
“Their stepfather was murdered in their home—a home we can’t even go back to yet. I think that’s a valid excuse for not acting like themselves.”
“I wonder if they should talk to someone.”
