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SEVENTEEN

Alex stares at the words, not moving, not breathing. What do they mean, hiding something ? They couldn’t possibly know that. Not unless… No, Alex can’t let herself go there. It’s nothing, she tells herself, though the panic is making her feel dizzy. She takes a deep breath. It’s just someone who doesn’t want her taking over for Francis trying to scare her. She can handle it. If she has any chance of keeping this job, she’ll have to. Alex only has three days left to find the perfect letter and write her first column. She can’t let herself get distracted with empty threats from cowardly people who know absolutely nothing about her. She puts the letter into her drawer and closes it, picking a new envelope from the pile.

Dear Constance,

I need your help—

Her body buzzes unpleasantly and the words blur on the page as she loses focus. What if the letter isn’t just some random person trying to scare her? She remembers Raymond’s warning about the notecard. This is even more explicit. She can imagine what he’d say about it. A menacing letter mailed to the desk of a murdered woman. What if Francis got a letter as well before she died? Alex worries, her heart twisting. She puts the unread letter down. What if Francis got a letter like this one and dismissed it as something random and harmless from someone who was not a fan of her work? She imagines Francis going to her summer home and being confronted, a knife plunged into her chest.

There is a scraping sound in the hallway, the tap of footsteps, slow at first and then faster and louder. Someone coming toward her office. With Lucy already gone for the day, Alex stands anxiously. She waits for a knock on the door. When nothing comes, she looks around the office for something to defend herself with. Her eyes settle on the letter opener. She snatches it off the desk. The shell handle is cool against her palm. She holds the surprisingly heavy blade out in front of her, her hand trembling. Now another sound comes from the hall—quieter than before, a slow creaking of a shoe on the floor.

“Hello,” she says in a voice barely loud enough to carry.

She creeps to the door, her heart roaring in her ears. Her breathing rattles loudly as she places a hand on the knob. The footsteps start again, pounding down the hall as she struggles to turn the handle and pull the door one-handed. By the time she has wrested the door open, the hallway is still and silent. She stands in the doorway, the letter opener wavering in her hand. Her chest rises and falls. She tries to tell herself it was her imagination, but the hall buzzes with a weird kinetic energy and she can nearly feel that someone has just been here.

She pulls the door shut, wishing there were a lock and a deadbolt like the ones in her apartment. She forces herself back to her desk and tries to read, but she is feeling anxious now. The words of the threatening letter cycle though her head. She rises and paces her office. The lights have come on in the Excelsior Building. She thinks about Tom. Maybe she should go get another coffee. But the chances of running into him this late are slim. She glances at her phone: 9:23. The coffee shop is closed already anyway. She remembers seeing an office kitchen off the newsroom.

Howard’s office is dark tonight, the blinds open. He’ll be home now with Regina, Alex thinks, imagining the two of them in their marble- countered kitchen pouring a glass of wine to go with some tastefully plated meal. Alex’s stomach growls. She’s been living on muffins and bagels. And coffee.

She turns on a light in the kitchenette and puts a pod into the coffee maker, trying to figure out the buttons. As she waits for it to brew, she looks at the corkboard on the wall. There are several notes about keeping things in the fridge, a few upcoming events, an invitation to a book party for a staff writer. A few newspaper clippings, one about a cow that escaped captivity by going incognito with a pack of wild bison. Tacked right in the center is Francis Keen’s obituary. It is curling a bit on the edges, the paper darkening eight months out. It’s amazing how fast newsprint ages. She looks at the photo of Francis, slightly blurry from the offset printing, standing behind what is now Alex’s desk, her white shirtsleeves rolled up. As the coffee brews mechanically behind her, she looks into the eyes of Francis Keen. They are soft and happy. What would Francis think of all of this?

Alex leans in, trying to make out the objects on top of her desk as if she will be able to see more by being closer, but the picture just goes grainy and her eyes blur with the effort. Francis looks so lively, so wise. She was a voice of calm and reason to so many people, a stand-in mother, a wise aunt to those who didn’t have one. She thinks of what it must have been like being alone in her house. Did she see her killer before the knife came down on her? Did she recognize them? Alex brushes her finger over the photograph.

What happened to you? Who would want to kill a woman who only tried to help people?

Behind her the coffee maker dings. She collects her cup and carries it back toward her office. The newsroom is silent, except for the background hum of electricity and forced air that keep a giant skyscraper’s ecosystem going. She pauses, looking at the bank of huge windows across the newsroom. The last bit of sunset has just snuffed out, leaving all the windows black and scattered with yellow spots of lights from other buildings.

What an incredibly odd feeling to be standing here all alone, when a week ago she had never even dreamed of working at the Herald . She continues toward her office, trying to push thoughts of Francis’s murder from her mind. It’s a dream come true working here, she reminds herself as she passes through the doorway between the filing cabinets. She stops abruptly as she turns into the old part of the building. Her heart jerks violently in her chest at the sight of a tall figure far down the hall, standing right by her office door.