Her fingers closed weakly around his lapel. "Not my condo. Not company security. Corbin has the night staff." "Hospital."
She shook her head with such panic that he stopped asking. "He'll find me." Everett looked toward Michigan Avenue, toward the glowing museum entrance, toward every sensible choice he had already lost. Then he thought of Lily asleep on the foldout sofa in their apartment, her inhaler lined up beside her water cup, trusting that he would always come home. "All right," he said.
"Then you're coming with me." His pickup was six blocks away in a parking garage he could barely afford, even at the employee discounted event rate. An old blue Ford with a cracked windshield and a heater that only worked if the fan knob was wedged between settings. Everett half-carried Marin through the rain, past caterers smoking under an awning, and a valet too busy scrolling his phone to notice that a woman whose face appeared on business magazines was sagging against an exhausted father in scuffed shoes.
Twice she tried to speak. Twice the words dissolved into a shallow breath. He buckled her into the passenger seat and tucked his suit coat over her bare arms, leaving himself in a thin white shirt that clung coldly to his back. As he drove south and west through the wet city, he kept checking the mirrors, taking turns he did not need to take, slipping beneath the elevated tracks and through neighborhoods where high-rises gave way to brick two-flats and corner stores with bars over the windows, Marin drifted in and out.
Once near the river, she grabbed his wrist and whispered, "Director's vote." Another time she said, "My father knew," and began to cry without sound. Everett had watched powerful people cry before, but usually from a distance in conference rooms after numbers went bad or reputations cracked. This was different.
There was no performance in it, no audience, just a woman drugged and hunted in the passenger seat of a poor man's truck. His apartment was above a shuttered tailor shop in Pilsen, two rooms, unreliable heat, a view of the alley, and pipes that knocked at night like someone trying to get in. Mrs. Alvarez from downstairs was sitting with Lily when he arrived, half asleep in an armchair with a rosary looped around her fingers and a telenovela glowing silently on the television. She took one look at Everett carrying the unconscious woman in the ruined gown and opened her mouth.
Everett shook his head once. "Please," he said. Mrs. Alvarez had lived long enough to recognize trouble that should not be questioned at the door. She gathered her cardigan, accepted the folded bills Everett pressed into her hand, and touched his sleeve before leaving. "Lock both locks," she whispered.