The Green Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Listen, I’m never going to make it to the meeting. Please do me a favor. Tell Peter that I’m terribly sick—throwing up or something—and I’m running late. But I’ll be there in an hour. My draft is on the system if he wants to review it now. Oh shit!”
    “What?”
    “No, I can’t do that. I need more time. Please go tell Neil that he may need to pick up the slack for me.”
    “What? Why would you get Neil involved? That won’t look good. You don’t want Peter to think you’re blowing him off.”
    “I know. It’s complicated. But I have to do some things first. It’s an emergency. Listen, I need to go. Thank you so much for calling.”
    THE hot water pouring over her felt intensely relaxing and with repeated deep breaths, Abby began her mental checklist for the day. She had to call her credit card companies. The police had emphasized that she needed to act quickly regarding her finances. They didn’t seem too worried that anyone would come find her and rob or kill her, but she was also going to call a locksmith right away. With house keys and her drivers’ license in the hands of those criminals, she couldn’t feel safe, and as the wine kicked in last night, her imagination had gotten the best of her. She tossed and turned and drank until at least four in the morning, wondering whether the thugs in the bar had murdered that woman and whether they were now after her, or whether they were just guys who thought it would be fun to find her and rape her, or whether the man who chased her was a drug dealer and was searching for her.
    Now, under the vise grip of her pounding headache, combined with the hot water attempting to shock her system into a new day, some of her fears sounded pretty far-fetched and she just wanted to try to forget all of it and fix things at work. The officers last night had been comforting. They had not criticized her for coming home before calling, and they assured her that the information would be passed on to the appropriate district. Another officer would probably contact her to follow up, but for now, she had done all that could be done.
    A little more than an hour later, Abby sat on the train, looking out at the rooftops of the neighborhoods she knew so well, and wondered what to tell Peter. This was bad. Peter was a hothead on a good day. He would blame her for trying to go home last night. Neil probably stayed all night. That’s what any dedicated lawyer, certainly anyone nearing partnership, would have done. She leaned up against the window and looked out at the neighborhood. She pictured the conversation and thought she’d come off looking like an idiot. Being sick seemed better. That woman’s face, the blank stare, kept popping into her thoughts and Abby shook her head, trying to erase the image. She looked up at the brown chart over the door and realized she couldn’t read the stops. She’d forgotten her glasses. It only took a second for her to remember: She had left them in Ali’s car.
    ABBY waved at the receptionist without an explanation and headed for her office. It was now quarter to ten and life appeared to be business as usual. Like last night never happened. Just a bad dream. The mail guy was rolling the cart down the hall, stopping at all the in-boxes with the new day’s stress and several paralegals and secretaries were gathering for coffee and whatever sweet treat might have been brought for another birthday in the break room. Abby slowed as she approached Peter’s corner office and strained to listen for voices inside, praying he wasn’t there. She rushed past the empty office, turned the corner down the south hall, and made it to her office without being spotted. She hoped to find a note or an e-mail or a voice mail from Peter berating her. At least then he’d have gotten the rage out and she could go from there. But there wasn’t anything. No voice mail, e-mail, notes. She tried to pull up the draft motion, but she couldn’t. The document was