Look Again

Chapter Ninety-one

Ellen got home, hollow and spent, raw and aching. She tossed her bag and keys on the windowseat, and stamped powdery snow from her snowy clogs. She took off her coat and hung it up, but it fell onto the closet floor. She didn't have the energy to pick it up. She was thirsty but didn't get anything to drink. She was hungry but didn't bother to eat. She didn't even have the strength to be mad at the reporters, following her back from Sarah's, plaguing her with questions. Oreo Figaro came over to rub against her shins, but she ignored him and went upstairs to read Sal's piece.

She clopped slowly up the stairs, the sound of her clogs like the ticking of a clock slowing down. She had never felt like this in her life. She was empty, a ghost of a person. She went into her office on autopilot, flicked on a light, and crossed to the computer. She sat down and moved the mouse, and her computer monitor woke up with a screensaver of Will posing with Oreo Figaro.

Please, no.

She opened up Outlook and watched the boldfaced names pile into the Inbox. She waited for Marcelo's email to load and braced herself to read the article. But Marcelo's wasn't the email that caught her eye. She moved the mouse, clicked on another email, and opened it, reading quickly.

And then she screamed.

And when she stopped screaming, she reached for the phone.