Save Me

Chapter Fifty-seven

Rose slouched down in the driver’s seat, pretending to read her BlackBerry, though she could barely see the screen through her sunglasses. Warren had gone into Campanile headquarters at 4:50, and it was 5:45. It meant he had probably gotten to the second interviewer, but she was beginning to worry. She prayed she hadn’t gotten him into anything dangerous.

She’d parked the car in the last row of the lot, where it couldn’t be seen from the entrance, and kept an eye on the entrance in the rearview mirror, waiting for him to appear. The Campanile offices were in a typical corporate center: low-profile buildings with fieldstone façades and smoked-glass windows. Each company had its own signed parking lot, and there were dried cornstalks tied to the CAMPANILE sign, next to a hay bale and a gigantic pumpkin.

Rose watched as Campanile employees filed in a steady stream from the front doors, wearing white ID tags around their necks, talking, laughing, and lighting up cigarettes. Everybody went to their cars, chirping them unlocked on the way, like so many corporate crickets. It was mostly women in the beginning, then a mixed group later, many of the men in navy-blue Campanile polo shirts, carrying clipboards with navy covers or navy messenger bags that read THE CAMPANILE GROUP.

Rose had the driver’s side window open because it was hot and she didn’t want to keep the engine running, drawing attention to herself. The breeze carried some of the employees’ conversations, and she caught snippets of some: “I told you not to email him, just call, Sue. He owes you an explanation.” And, “We need to move the staircase, relocate it on the south side. Problem solved.” And, “Run the numbers, Don. Do the math!”

Rose checked the rearview again, and two men in suits came out, one short and bald, and the other with dark hair and a massive build, maybe six-two and two hundred and fifty pounds. The big one struck her as familiar, but she didn’t know where she knew him. He walked down the steps, bending to talk with the man, their conversation too low to hear.

She tried to place the big man as he walked toward a car. His suit jacket blew open in the breeze, showing a major paunch and something else. A gun, in a shoulder holster. She blinked, startled. She had seen him before, but she couldn’t place him at all. The big man raised his key fob and unlocked a navy-blue SUV that read THE CAMPANILE GROUP on the side door.

Rose stayed low, racking her brain. She hadn’t seen the big man at school. She would remember somebody that tall because she was tall. Where had she met him? At a party? She wasn’t invited to parties. On the street? She didn’t live here. She didn’t know anybody at Campanile. She’d never heard of the company until the fire.

Suddenly, the bald man stopped by his car and turned back, calling to the big man. “Hey, Mojo!” he yelled, and the big man turned.

“What?”

“I take it back. Thursday’s better!”

The big man waved, acknowledging him, then got into his SUV.

Mojo?

Rose didn’t know any Mojo. It was obviously a nickname. She grabbed her phone and thumbed to the photo function as the man reversed in the SUV, then put it in drive and drove past her. As he went by, she snapped his photo, saved it, then hit ZOOM to enlarge it and studied the man’s face. He looked so familiar. Long nose, dark hair, huge build.

Rose remembered how she’d recognized him. She’d seen him last night, on one of the videos she’d watched, from Tanya’s TV station. She thumbed to the Internet on her phone, plugged in the website for the TV station, and pressed until she got to stories about the fire. She found the link for Tanya’s “More on Moms” interview of Eileen Gigot, then pressed PLAY. She sat through the opening about single moms, then the story segued to the boilerplate about the Homestead factory. The photo of some men came onto the screen, and one of them stood much taller than the others.

She pressed STOP. The man in the photo looked like Mojo, but the screen was too small to read his full name. She didn’t know if it mattered, but she didn’t have time to think about it now.

Warren was walking toward her car.