“Don…”
“I see him.”
Her red Saturn was comfortingly close.
“Probably nothing, but I’m gonna talk to him,” Don said. “Once you’re safe and sound.”
“I can take it from here,” she said, patting his arm.
“You sure?”
She nodded. “I’ll feel better to have you between me and him anyway. He’s probably just looking for his car, but…”
“Don’t you worry, Cheryl Beth.” Don peeled off and walked toward the man. Cheryl Beth made her aching legs cross the last twenty feet to the Saturn. By habit, she already had her key out. She stepped between her car and the black Accord parked next to her.
Something in the Accord made her look. It was white, on the front passenger seat. An envelope. Then it all happened at once: the name Dr. Christine Lustig written in a neat script in blue ink. Cheryl Beth hadn’t been snooping, she would later tell herself. She just saw the name-she had always had twenty-twenty vision-and at first couldn’t believe it. That made her look closer, until she was leaning against the Honda. The envelope was addressed to Christine. It was on a pile of files and a portfolio sitting in the gray passenger seat. She glanced toward Don and saw that both he and the man in the Reds cap had disappeared. She lingered at the window, knowing she was being nosy, feeling a terrible dread from such an ordinary piece of paper. The envelope addressed to Christine had been opened; the top of it was torn and ragged as if it had been unsealed with fingers, not a letter opener. It was just sitting there. She strained to see the return address, but couldn’t. She pulled out her penlight and shone it inside.
The rest of the car looked neat. The outside had been recently washed and glowed under the lights. The backseat was empty, the front seats clean…no spent Starbucks cups in the cup holders like in her car. Just a pile of files and a portfolio, maybe three inches thick, and on top of it a No. 10 envelope addressed in blue ink to Dr. Christine Lustig. A folded letter was visible at the edge of the serration. It wasn’t addressed to her office at the hospital. Cheryl Beth could make out her home address in Hyde Park. The return address, damn, just too small…
“May I help you?”
She gasped in a second of hysteria, then recovered. She slipped the penlight in her pocket. A man had appeared on the driver’s side of the car. He was wearing green scrubs and had a striking face: pale skin, prominent dark eyebrows, small eyes, intense stare. His dark hair was close-cropped and was creeping well back from his prominent, pasty forehead. She guessed he was in his early thirties. And he was wearing only green scrubs in this cold. His upper arms had sharply defined muscles.
