It was time to put pressure on Zack—either he was able to come back, or he was not. She had cut him more than enough slack but she had a business to run, and enough was enough of trying to make do. “I’m sorry,” she said as she entered the outer office, “our receptionist is on sick leave and…” A man who looked polished for an event more ornate than a visit to her office stood with one manicured hand on the shoulder of a woman in a wheelchair. She knew that frizzy hair, or a picture of it, the one clear part of the tape. She’d seen that face over and over, screaming. Sophia Redmond, suffering a relapse of insurance-scam paralysis, looked at a newspaper she held, then at Emma, and seemed to find the match satisfactory. “You’re Emma Howe,” she said. Emma nodded agreement. “You own this agency, don’t you?” Emma was sure she was about to be slapped with something. Billie had done her in, screwed up so badly that now they were being sued. She nodded again. “Good,”
