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I emailed him back and said I was on my way, knowing I had enough time to make one stop.

Jack Wolf was standing in the middle of theTribunecity room when I arrived, talking to an attractive red-haired woman. It had to be his managing editor. Megan somebody. Thomas said he couldn’t remember whether Jack was still sleeping with her or not.

“Just in case you need a little extra ammo when you get there,” Thomas had told me.

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

I walked down the middle of the room, past reporters at their desks, feeling every single eye in the place on me. Apparently they all recognized me just fine with my clothes on.

“Jenny,” Jack said when I got to him, not acting remotely surprised to see me.

“Jack.”

The room had gone quiet.

“This is Megan Callahan, our managing editor,” he said.

“I know who she is,” I said, keeping my eyes on my brother.

“If you want to talk, we should really go to my office.”

“I’m fine here.”

“Have it your way.”

“That was some front page today,” I said. “What’s the London tabloid with naked women on page 3? I always forget.”

“TheSun,” he said.

“Well, you beat them by two pages, didn’t you?”

“We don’t make the news. You did that all by yourself. We just try to present it in an interesting way.”

He sat down on the edge of the nearest desk. He wore a vest, no jacket, tie pulled down from his collar, more for effect than comfort, I was sure. He seemed to enjoy playing the part of editor, even though I was fairly certain he would have gone into a dead faint if he were asked to lay out pages himself.

“If you came to have a scene,” Jack said, “then have at it.”

“I came to ask you a question.”

“And what’s that?”

I waited, then smiled.

“Is that all you got?”

I walked out the way I’d come, without looking back.

Twenty-Six

MY BOSS AT HUNTERS POINTwas younger than I was.

Joey Rubino came from the neighborhood, lived a couple of blocks from where I did. He was a good guy and had made it clear, from our first meeting, what a huge Wolves fan he was. I liked him a lot and realized now how much I was going to miss working for him.

“Quite a day,” he said when I was in his office, door closed.

Then he grinned.

“I’m talking about me, not you.”