CHAPTER ONE
The high-pitched alarm pierced my sleep, jolting me awake. Five more alarms screeched, squeezed on me from all sides, scrambling my thoughts.
I grabbed my phone. Groped in the blackness for my shoes and shoved my feet into them.
A baby was crying.
Voices shouted in the hall, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Someone banged on my door, insistent.
My body suddenly felt heavy, weighed down by a wave of foreboding.
I raced into the hallway, where the alarms wailed, louder now, slamming into my eardrums.
Empty.
My heart jackhammered. I yanked open the heavy front door and hurried outside into a downpour. Sharp needles of rain pelted my skin, drenching my flimsy pajamas in seconds. Water swirled around my feet, soaking through my shoes.
A pudgy man in a black T-shirt shouted at me from the bottom of the stairs, “You waiting on an invitation? Get out of there!”
I scurried down the steps and sprinted past a heap of black garbage bags on the sidewalk, then ran across the street to join a group huddled under a skinny tree.
“Did anyone see Artie?” a woman in faded plaid pajamas was saying, eyes darting. “I didn’t see him come out.”
“My cat is still inside,” the blonde woman next to me whispered, her face wet with tears.
My pulse pounded. “Has anyone called 911?”
A large guy in a shabby gray bathrobe raced out of the building. “It’s a false alarm!” he shouted. “I checked every floor. No smoke. No fire.”
The pajama woman crossed her arms. “I’m not going back in until the fire department says it’s okay.”
“Suit yourself,” the bathrobe guy said. Up close, he looked older than I had originally thought, forty maybe, with dark-olive skin and a week’s worth of black stubble. He glanced at me. “You the new neighbor?”
“Kate Bradley,” I answered, sweeping damp hair from my face.
“Raymond Cruz.” He grasped my hand in a death grip. “Heard you’re from LA and—”
His words were drowned out by the loud blast of a horn and the scream of sirens as an FDNY fire engine barreled up the narrow street.
He popped a stick of gum in his mouth. “Welcome to Manhattan, Kate.”
I was ready for battle.
My leather tote was loaded with electronics: a laptop, a digital voice recorder—even though I had a recording app on my phone—and noise-canceling headphones. Gear: running shoes, an umbrella, a small makeup case. And a journalist’s armor: pens, notebooks, a cell phone. A cup of coffee buzzed through my veins, and I clutched another one in my hand. I’d already scrolled through the morning’s headlines, checked Twitter, and texted my boss, the EVP of news at American News Channel, about a story I hoped to cover on my first day as a national news correspondent.
Squeezed on a Fifth Avenue sidewalk packed with a sea of people and with my earbuds at full volume, I was immersed in a rapid rundown of the day’s lead stories.
That’s when I saw them.
The little girl with a blonde ponytail giggled as she bounced up and down on her dad’s shoulders, high above the throng. Clutching a balloon in her chubby hand, she pointed at the glittering window displays.
My eyes met hers, and I flashed her a smile.
This was how I’d always imagined the idyllic wonderland known as Manhattan. Glorious blue skies and puffy white clouds on a summer morning. Smartly dressed people heading to do important work after grabbing breakfast on an outdoor patio bustling with waiters bringing trays of inspired dishes.
Then a sudden whoosh of movement and the scrape of tumbling metal. The next thing I knew I was flat on my stomach, hit by a force so hard it knocked the wind out of me. My bag followed me, spilling its contents across the sidewalk. My coffee cup tumbled a second later, hitting the pavement, then bouncing into the gutter.
I watched a guy on a green bike whiz ahead and snake his way through the crowd, but it took me two full seconds to register that he was the one who had knocked me over.
“Hey!” I tried shouting, but it sounded thin. Weak.
A canvas bag brushed the back of my head. A still-smoldering cigarette landed beside me. The crush of commuters and tourists journeying the avenue that morning kept going, stepping around me as though I were simply an obstacle on the busy sidewalk, not a person who might need help.
I tried gathering the lipstick, pens, and keys that had spilled from my bag, dodging the feet of passersby—and two massive dogs—to grab at them. But as I knelt on the sidewalk stuffing everything back into my bag, I was engulfed by the foul smell of the sewer just a few feet away. Putrid, the odor was so potent I felt a wave of nausea.
I should have . . .
I should have what? Had eyes in the back of my head? I should have focused on the people and cart-pushing vendors around me, not the girl with the balloon?
I should have worn something with more padding.
“Hey, are you all right?” a man asked.
I looked up, but he was backlit by sunlight, so I couldn’t see his face. He extended a hand and helped lift me to my feet.
He eyed something on the ground and then disappeared from my view before returning seconds later clutching a set of keys.
“These yours?”
It took me a moment to recognize them. The simple key ring, graced with an enamel palm tree and surfboard charms, was a gift from my friend Teri so that I would always remember Southern California, where I had lived up until two days ago. And although the keys dangling from the chain were tired brass, they were new to me: one for the new apartment and a smaller one for the mailbox.
“Thank you.” I took the key from him, my hands still stinging from where they’d slammed against the pavement.
He shifted his position on the sidewalk to make way for a guy in a suit yelling into his phone, and I got a good look at him. Yankees ball cap. Blue eyes beneath dark eyebrows. Muscular arms under a black T-shirt. Serious running shoes. For a moment, I thought his face looked familiar, but I blamed that effect on the fall.
“Can I get you a cab?”
“I’m good.” I pointed up the street. “Just a few more blocks to go . . .”
A woman pushing a double stroller barreled toward us, so I moved aside to let her pass.
He handed me an unopened bottle of water. “Want me to walk with you?”
“I’m fine. Really. But thank you.”
“Okay then.” His eyes took me in. For the brief moment he studied my face, I thought he might have recognized me. That happened a lot in Los Angeles, where I’d been on TV as a Channel Eleven reporter for seven years. But I hadn’t even filed my first report on ANC.
“Glad I could help,” he said, then watched me go.
ANC’s newsroom was filled with a steady hum, a murmur of electronics coming from row upon row of computers on every desk and an array of TV monitors that lined the walls throughout the cavern of a room. Mixed in with the thrum were hurried discussions and the soft scuff of producers and reporters rushing across the vast carpeted landscape.
I drew in a deep breath, trying to steady my jittery nerves. After years covering breaking local news—violence, disasters, and tragedy—in Los Angeles, I’d dreamed of working at a national news network. And here I was, recruited by ANC’s executive vice president, Andrew Wright.