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“It was shift change,” Maeve continues in that low, eerie tone.

“You know we’ve had someone at every one of your houses ‘round-the-clock lately? Somehow, this person knew that there was a five-minute window where Zane was briefing Logan and neither one of them were inside. Whoever planned this was good , Sterling. The police think that maybe she got startled and made a break for the front instead of the back.”

“It would have had to be a guy,” you say slowly. “Couldn’t be a woman. Art weighs 55 pounds. And they drugged her? She would have been dead weight. Where is she now?”

Maeve laughs, but doesn’t sound amused. “You owe that paparazzo a gratuity or something, because he actually put down his fucking camera for a minute and called the cops. Logan was there within a couple minutes, but a forensic team is here as well. Logan called an emergency vet, and Zane drove her over. We haven’t heard anything yet. ”

By now, Kai is fully awake. It’s pitch-black in the bedroom, and he fumbles for the lamp when he sits up.

“Everything all right?” he asks sleepily.

No, it’s not fucking all right! you want to shout. Tamping the feeling down, because this is definitely not his fault, you take a deep breath.

“I need to get to New York,” you mutter. “There’s a problem.”

Not for the first time, you are intensely grateful for Kai’s sixth sense in both reading you like a book and not asking stupid questions. He swings his long legs over the side of the bed.

“I’m coming with you,” he says.

***

The season has changed since the last time you were in here, but Blair’s office looks unchanged.

For her part, you would swear that her hair is precisely the same length—she must be in the stylist’s chair getting that bob trimmed every third or fourth week—and that she must be an adherent of the whole capsule wardrobe idea.

Her outfit is beige and white, just a cooler-weather version of what she wears in the summer.

Like a uniform. You’re staring at the harness on her stone-colored Frye boot when she clears her throat to draw your attention.

“I’m sorry,” you say automatically.

“No, it’s okay.” She rests her tablet on the table beside her. “I was just saying that it’s been a bit since we talked. Your assistant filled me in on what brings you to town. How’s your pup?”

Sighing, you try to get more comfortable in the chair across from her. It’s a fine chair, and well-upholstered, but you are carrying so much tension in your joints that sitting on a fucking cloud would probably hurt.

“The doctor said she’s going to be fine,” you say.

“They held her for 24 hours and released her with a clean bill of health. She’s just extra-clingy.

She already has to take medication for her anxiety.

I’m going to have to take her with me when I go back to Miami.

She absolutely hates flying, but I can’t risk not having her with me. ”

Blair nods. “My dog is neurotic, too. Her name is Lola, and she takes Prozac. She’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Is Artemis a small breed as well?”

“No,” you say absently. “Boxer.”

“Hmm,” she says, but does not elaborate.

Honestly, you aren’t interested in talking about the relative predilection towards mental health issues in dog breeds.

Honestly, you don’t know what you came here to talk about.

Maeve made you the appointment. She didn’t ask, she just told you to go.

Kai thinks that you are having lunch with some of your Goalposts dancers.

To be fair, you didn’t explicitly say that you were meeting them.

You just mentioned that a few of them were meeting for tapas and drinks in Brooklyn.

And, to be fair, they are —you unmuted the group chat when you got over being annoyed by it—but you personally just aren’t going.

It’s lying by omission, technically. But… somehow, the reality is much worse.

“How long will you be in the city?” Blair asks.

“I’m not sure,” you admit. “Kai and I were supposed to be leaving the city tomorrow. It’s his bye-week. But now I’m bogged down in security meetings with my team. Until we come up with a good strategy, I can’t leave. I guess I’m here indefinitely.”

“Did they catch the person who broke into your townhouse?” she asks.

You scrub your eyes. “No,” you say. “That’s really scary and frustrating.

The police have footage from a Ring camera at the building across the street, but the footage is grainy because it’s a distance.

They somehow disabled my alarm system and came up through the garden level.

They broke a window. What’s even more scary is that they knew where to find Artemis. It’s a big place.”

As soon as the words are out of your mouth, you regret them. Blair nods thoughtfully.

“Oh?” she asks.

You don’t want to talk about it. Your place on the Upper West Side has six floors plus a rooftop garden.

There’s a full-sized lap pool and personal gym in the cellar.

There are both mahogany staircases and an elevator.

The brownstone exterior soars in Neo-Renaissance and New-Romanesque design; the front stoop is perhaps two minutes from the grass of Strawberry Fields.

It was your most expensive property, but, right now, it feels like a dirty little secret.

You don’t even like being there at present.

It’s too visible. Too many people know you live there.

They violated it, and it doesn’t feel like a home anymore.

“That makes sense,” she says thoughtfully. “Does Artemis have her own room?”

“The dogs share a bedroom,” you say, happy for the change in topic.

“Art is there a lot by herself. Well, not by herself so much as without Apollo. My senior personal assistant is based in Manhattan, and she spends a lot of days with her, and, of course, I pay for day-off companions and dog walkers. I swear that she spends more time with other people than with me.”

“I’m glad she’s okay,” Blair says, with an encouraging smile. “How are you feeling about everything?”

Over Blair’s shoulder, the afternoon sky is starting to get smudgy with dusk, the way that this part of the country does when it’s not literally the middle of the summer. It gets dark so early in New York. Against your will, your fingers curl tighter on the arms of the chair.

“There’s a lot going on,” you admit reluctantly. “Feel free to admit that you heard about Kai’s injury. I won’t hold it against you.”

“I did hear about it,” she says, and you begrudgingly admire her candor. “I didn’t really follow the NFA before I met you, but his name jumped out at me when I was on the elliptical. I’m sorry to hear that he got hurt. How’s he doing?”

“Umm, better?” you say. “That’s the official word, anyway.”

“What does official word mean? I don’t understand.”

“Oh, well, he got back on the field sooner than I would have liked. I just worry about him a lot, I guess. He was cleared to play and all that.”

“I see.” She taps her toe against her calf meditatively. “Have you always worried a lot about his health on the field? Football is a contact sport. I have to imagine that there’s always a fear in the back of your mind, as a loved one.”

“I know this sounds stupid,” you admit, “but not really? I don’t know. It didn’t become real to me until he got hurt. Now I feel like it’s all I can think about.”

“Is it really about Kai?” she presses. “Or are you finding yourself generally more anxious these days? With your career struggling, and the crimes on your property, and your partner’s injury? That’s a lot, Sterling. It’s okay to be affected by it.”

A flock of birds flies past the glass. You wish you could fly beyond this conversation.

“I’ve definitely been more on edge than normal,” you say carefully, after weighing the value of lying about it.

“How are you handling that?”

“Excuse me?”

“The additional tension.”

“Oh.” You crack your knuckles restlessly. “I’ve been, ahh, meditating a lot. I try to keep up with my daily yoga flow. I haven’t been eating as much, and I guess that’s a problem. I do like a glass of wine or three when I’m feeling extra-stressed.”

SHUT THE FUCK UP! your brain screams unhelpfully in bold railroad font. She’s a fucking shrink! Do you realize what that sounds like?

Blair doesn’t make a face or even arch an eyebrow, though. She reaches over for her tablet.

“How would you feel about starting something for your anxiety?” she asks, looking at the screen.

“I like Wellbutrin for people like you. It’s off-label for anxiety specifically, but a lot of clients say that it helps.

It’s activating, so you don’t deal with any dragginess.

Fewer sexual side effects than other meds, too. ”

Your teeth are literally on edge. “I don’t think so. Thank you.”

She still doesn’t look up. “Do you take any prescription drugs currently?”

“No.”

“Okay, so I understand why you might be reluctant to start. A lot of people have walls up when it comes to medications. I could give you some literature, and you could look at it and let me know. I don’t like Doctor Google, but you could do your own research.

I really think that you could use a little help right now.

At the very least, until things settle down in your professional and personal life. ”

You want to tell her that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that any part of your life is settling down any time in the next decade or so.

Instead, you swallow your irrational hostility and agree to take the pamphlets she’s handing you.

You drop them in the trash on your way out of her building.

***

NEW YORK CITY: Police have arrested Aileen Rosenthal, 49, on suspicion of breaking into Sterling Grayson’s New York City residence and kidnapping his dog.

Rosenthal, a former Corporal in the United States Marine Force, surrendered herself to police on Friday.

When Rosenthal walked into the station, she was carrying what she termed a “manifesto,” a spiral-bound notebook containing what police would only call “disturbing details” about Grayson.

The manifesto included architectural plans for his UWS home and a schematic of the electrical system.

Rosenthal, this publication can confirm, received an OTH discharge from service due to erratic behavior.

She was trained as a systems technician, which may have given her additional insight into how to disable Grayson’s alarm system.

Rosenthal spent upwards of three hours explaining to police why she took Grayson’s dog, say authorities.

Allegedly, she was an animal lover who wanted to “rescue” the dog from what Rosenthal perceived to be Grayson’s tremendous wickedness.

Her manifesto contained dozens of Bible verses and stream-of-consciousness narratives regarding Grayson.

“It was obsessive,” says an unnamed source. “It’s like she knew everything about him but his Social Security number.”

Perhaps most disturbingly, we can confirm, authorities are keeping mum about the fact that, when she turned herself in, Rosenthal was carrying two automatic weapons.

“She absolutely wanted to kill him,” says our source. “If Sterling Grayson had been in town, she absolutely would have done it, too.”