“Kaitlyn?” the receptionist called out.
Two women stood—Nora’s new friend and a woman with a blond bob and round red glasses.
“Kaitlyn, last name A,” the receptionist clarified. “Kaitlyn, first name with a K.”
The blond bob sat down and Kaitlyn looked at Nora, hope in her eyes. Nora took out a business card from the stack she kept in her jacket pocket, the ones that simply had her name and phone number.
“Let me know,” she whispered, handing Kaitlyn the card. “Okay? Or if you want to chat? I know you said—about your husband. I mean, I know it’s tough. But we’re kind of in this together.”
“Adore to,” Kaitlyn whispered back. Her expression softened, and she put a hand on Nora’s arm. “Incredibly kind of you. You’re the first person who seems to understand. I—”
The receptionist came out from behind her desk and approached them, disapproving, as if to collect a misbehaving child.
“Let me know how it goes, Kaitlyn,” Nora said. “Good luck.”
CHAPTER 10
ELLIE
“You just missed him.” The voice of the afternoon-shift guard buzzed through the louvered speaker set into the front wall of Channel 11’s plexiglass-enclosed reception desk. He held up his wristwatch, judgmental. At least he was awake.
“Missed who?” Ellie tapped her entry card against the black metal reader, then clicked open the glass security door into the inner lobby.
“Some guy? Left this for you.”
Ellie took the manila envelope, wondering, as his eyes focused again on the television monitor, how the guard could guard against anything. Ellie’s feet were clammy from walking on the dank slushy sidewalk, and she’d treated herself to a hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. She was trying to look at the pleasant side of life instead of the grim. Now the cream oozed out between the plastic top and the paper cup and made damp blotches on her leather gloves.
She plopped onto one of the blue pseudo-leather chairs in the Channel 11 lobby, curious about the envelope. A seagull, then two, squawked outside in the afternoon gray, then the pair swirled down to the sidewalk in front of the station’s plate glass window, staring at their reflections, their webbed feet awkward in the thin carpet of snow. “Dumb birds,” Ellie muttered, “staying here in the cold.” She hated seagulls. Stupid and noisy. Scavengers.
She flapped up the metal prongs on the envelope and drew out a sheet of white paper, folded in thirds, with a yellow stickie attached. She peered into the envelope again. Empty. A piece of paper and a yellow stickie. All there was.
The stickie had careful block letters in black felt tip: More like this, if you are interested, the note said. And then a phone number. It was signed Gabe.
Ellie frowned. Gabe?
One of the seagulls complained, jabbed the other with its yellow bill. Elle shifted in her chair and opened the folded paper. She’d seen it before. The Pharminex email about Winton Vanderwald, and the Winton Trevor Vanderwald III scholarship fund.
Trevor Vanderwald, she’d read on Google, had died in a boating accident. Years ago. Google said he was being groomed to take over the company, but rough seas and an unlucky gust of wind—that had been in quotes, Ellie remembered—had ended the line of male succession in the Vanderwald family. His sister Brooke had been on the boat, too, Ellie read. The Caduceus. When she was nine, after Ellie had devoured every volume of the Cherry Ames, Student Nurse mysteries, she’d thought the caduceus was the symbol for medicine. But when she got older she’d learned it was also the magic wand of Hermes, messenger of the gods and patron of trade. Perfect for the Vanderwalds, she thought.
She stared at the email, trying to place “Gabe.” She didn’t know a Gabe, not in Boston and not anywhere. Since she was new in town, the universe of people knowing who she was and that she was here must be minuscule. Or was it? She’d called more than a few lawyers’ offices, inquiring specifically about Pharminex—had someone suggested her to an insider? She’d done searches on library computers—had someone examined her history? Warren knew she was working on Pharminex. So did Meg.
But who was Gabe? She pulled out her phone, tapped through to the Pharminex website, clicked on the employee directory. Clicked on call us.
“May I speak to Gabe?” Ellie pictured the Pharminex receptionist, and the lobby, all marble and glass, masses of fresh white roses. She assumed the flowers were supposed to soften the hard edges of the place, but she saw them as proof that someone was making too much money. Why not spend the rose money on research? On truly helping people? And the fragrance was suffocating.
“Last name, please?”
Which of course she didn’t know. “Oh, gosh.” She made her voice sound embarrassed. “I wrote it down funny, and I can’t read my own writing. It’s Gabe—something? Do you have many Gabriels?”
“I only have a listing by last name, ma’am.” The receptionist sounded impatient. “Do you know where this person is located?”
Which of course she didn’t. Well, maybe she did. “Boston?”
“No Gabes, ma’am.”
Ellie couldn’t resist. “Maybe last name Vanderwald?”
“Ma’am? May I ask who this is?”
“Thanks,” Ellie said, hanging up. Gabe could be anyone, from anywhere, and it might not even be his real name. Total dead end.
“Stupid Ellie,” she said out loud, shaking her head for missing the obvious. She googled the phone number he’d left. But only gobbledygook came up, nothing helpful. So much for research.
She had two choices: Call him. Or don’t.
She dialed.
As she heard the phone ring, somewhere, she stood and stared through the reception area’s plate glass window. Channel 11 was in the city’s new Seaport District, of all places. Ellie could sometimes smell the briny scent off the harbor when she went outside, a pungent whoosh of salt and mist that some people loved. She’d been a swimmer as a kid, dashing into the ocean without a second thought, coming home salt-covered and sunburned, nose peeling and sand in her scalp. Long ago. Another life.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice. She’d blocked her own caller ID, so he—whoever he was—couldn’t know it was her.
“You left me a note?” Ellie began.
“Ms. Berensen,” the voice said. “Listen, I know this is awkward. But I’ve been hearing you’re interested in looking into the realities of—” He stopped. “We shouldn’t do this over the phone.”
“You sent me this Pharminex email about Winton Vanderwald.” Ellie had to be infinitely careful, walk an impossible tightrope. This could be the call of her dreams, a Pharminex insider who had sneaked her this email to prove he had access, and was willing to offer her more. Or it could be a trap—a Pharminex fixer who was out to see where she was going, and stop her. This would prove she’d rattled their cage, though. And for better or for worse, they knew she was investigating them. “Could I ask who you are? And why you sent it? Do you work there?”
“We shouldn’t do this on the phone,” the voice said again.
“You dropped this note off at Channel Eleven?” Ellie peered out the wide front window again. Was Gabe out there right now, watching her watch for him? “Do you want to meet here?”