The Exchange: After The Firm

The managing partner was allowed into the building and led to the charred shell of what had been his rather plush suite of offices. The destruction was complete. Everything — walls, doors, furniture, computers, printers, rugs — was blackened and ruined. A few metal file cabinets had withstood the heat and smoke but were drenched with water. Their contents, though, were not valuable. All important files and papers were stored online.

By noon, the fire officials were calling it arson.

With that, the managing partner phoned New York.

Chapter 21

Epicurean Press occupied the bottom three floors of a turn-of-the-century brownstone on Seventy-Fourth Street, near Madison Avenue, on the Upper East Side. Above it, on floors four and five, the owner, an eccentric recluse who was pushing ninety, lived alone with her cats and her opera. She played records all day long, and as she aged and lost even more of her hearing, she gradually turned up the volume. No one complained because she owned the building, and also the ones on both sides. The editors on the third floor could sometimes hear the music, but it was never a problem. The brownstones of that era were built with thick walls and floors. She charged modest rent because, number one, she didn’t need the money, and, number two, she enjoyed having nice tenants below her.

A perfect morning for Abby began with clear skies, a fifteen-minute walk with Clark and Carter to school, then a thirty-minute walk across Central Park to her office at Epicurean. As a senior editor, she was on the first floor and thus far away from the opera but close enough to the kitchen. The offices were small but efficient. Space was cramped, like most of Manhattan, but also because valuable footage had been given to the kitchen, a large, modern, fully equipped facility designed to accommodate visiting chefs working on their cookbooks. One showed up almost every day, and the air was perpetually filled with delicious aromas of dishes from around the world.

Giovanna had been abducted twenty-seven days earlier.

As always, Abby ducked into a trendy coffee shop on Seventy-Third for her favorite latte. She was waiting in line at about nine-fifteen, her mind on the day ahead, her boys at school, her husband forty-eight floors up and hard at work, and her eyes on her phone. The person behind her gently tapped her on the arm. She turned around and looked into the face of a young Muslim woman in a long brown robe with a matching hijab with a veil that covered everything but her eyes.

“You’re Abby, right?”

She was startled and could not remember the last time, nor the first time, she had talked to a woman so completely covered. But it was, after all, New York City, home to plenty of Muslims. She offered a polite smile and said, “Yes, and you are?”

The man behind the Muslim woman was reading a folded newspaper. The nearest barista was loading a display case with croissants and quiches. No one was paying attention to anyone else.

She said, in perfect English with only a slight Middle Eastern accent, “I have news from Giovanna.”

The eyes were dark, young, heavily made-up, and Abby looked at them in disbelief as her knees wobbled, her heart skipped, and her mouth was almost too dry to speak. “I beg your pardon,” she managed to say, though she knew exactly what she had heard.

From somewhere inside her robe the woman pulled out an envelope and handed it to Abby. Five-by-seven, too heavy for only a letter. “I suggest you do as you’re told, Mrs. McDeere.”

Abby took the envelope, though something told her not to. The woman turned quickly and was at the door before Abby could say anything. The man with the folded newspaper glanced up. Abby turned around as if nothing had happened. The barista said, “What would you like?”

With difficulty, she said, “A double latte with cinnamon.”

She found a chair, sat down, and told herself to breathe deeply. She was embarrassed when she realized there were beads of sweat on her forehead. With a paper napkin from the table she wiped them off as she glanced around. The envelope was still in her left hand. More deep breaths. She placed it in her large shoulder bag and decided to open it at the office.

She should call Mitch, but something told her to wait a few minutes. Wait until she opened the envelope because whatever was in there would involve him too. When her latte was ready, she took it from the counter and left the shop. Outdoors, on the sidewalk, she managed a few steps before stopping cold. Someone was, or someone had been, watching, waiting, following her. Someone knew her name, her husband’s name, her husband’s business, her walking route to work, her favorite coffee shop. That someone had not gone away, but was nearby.

Keep moving, she told herself, and act as if nothing is wrong.