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EIGHTY-SEVEN

FOUR EMPTY BOXES AND one with nothing but a manila envelope inside. My nerves rattling, my heart slamming, my hands shaking so hard I can barely use them, the white noise inside my head drowning out all sound, I open the envelope, bearing one word, Marcie, on the outside.

I carefully dump out the contents.

A cell phone.

A handheld remote, small enough to fit in my hand, with two buttons.

A thumb drive.

And then a series of papers.

The first one is a single page. It reads, in David’s handwriting:

Marcie —

If you’re reading this, either I’m dead, you know my real identity, or both. Regardless, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. Please read what I’ve enclosed here. I hope it will explain everything.

I’ve loved you since the first time I laid eyes on you at the detention center. And I always will. You and the kids are everything to me.

The second is a thick set of papers stapled together — David’s explanation to me of “everything,” apparently. But now is not the time for a trip down memory lane. There is a trained assassin waiting outside for me to deliver him money, a man who will kill me if I don’t. There is an FBI agent expecting me to deliver that money who will put me in prison and make my kids orphans if I don’t.

The one thing I don’t have is the money.

I put that document to the side. That leaves a third document — like the first one, just a single page. Only six words.

I read it and reread it. Six words.

Six words that change everything.

The note drops from my hand, leaving me frozen for a moment, silent.

I look around the room, as if there’s anything to see, any clue to what I’m supposed to do next.

I pick up the note from David. It’s ten pages in length. His life story, looks like. I want to read it in full, digest every word, but I have little time, so I flip and scan, flip and scan for the stuff I need to know right now.

… an only child, born in a town near Lake Minnetonka, in Minnesota …

… moved to Naperville, outside of Chicago …

… accounting degree from U of I in Champaign …

… alcoholic, dead-end job …

… suspicious bookkeeping, should have recognized sooner …

… I didn’t know my client was a front for a mobster …

… I had to know, I had to be sure …

… I followed him to the warehouse …

… I didn’t know what else to do, whom to trust …

I slow down for the key parts at the end — what David did once he discovered that his client, an industrial warehousing company, was really a front for the mob. Then I reread those parts, just to make sure, realizing that I’m on a short clock.

And then I make a decision.

I’m going to believe you, David. I’m going to trust you.

I pick up the cell phone, some fancy-looking one, probably a high-end burner phone, and power it on. I get a small signal. I’m in an underground vault. The fact that I can get any signal at all tells me that this is a very sophisticated phone.

Well, here goes. If I do this, there’s no turning back.

I gather up my things. The empty duffel bags stacked flat on the luggage carriers. The new phone, the small handheld remote — remote for what? — and the thumb drive go inside my purse, along with David’s thick ten-page note to me.

I walk carefully back up the stairs, stepping gingerly on my tiptoes. When I reach the top of the stairs, the hallway is empty. I look to my left. The emergency exit. But no. If I push through that door, it will scream out an alarm. I won’t get twenty yards.

Maybe a fire alarm. But I don’t see any in this hallway.

The bathroom. I walk down the hallway into the women’s bathroom. It’s empty. I go inside one of the stalls and leave the door to the stall slightly ajar. I put down the toilet seat and sit on it.

And I pull out the phone David gave me. I don’t have a directory of numbers, but I don’t need a directory for this number. I punch the three digits and wait.

“911,” the operator answers. “What is your emergency?”

No more dancing puppet. It’s time for an audible.