The Hiding Place
Autor
Margot Dalton
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18,4K
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HarlequinCHAPTER ONE
THE APRIL MORNING was gray and cold. Freezing rain fell on Manhattan, pattering against the mounds of dirty snow piled at the curbs, washing into swollen storm drains. Traffic slowed to a crawl, and tempers frayed as drivers jostled for position in the crowded streets.
Outside a midtown hotel, a white-gloved doorman ventured from his post to hail a cab, then stowed a small pile of luggage into the trunk while a woman stood under the awning, waiting.
She was tall and slender, wearing a belted navy trench coat over beige flannel slacks and a white turtleneck. Her light brown, shoulder-length hair was pulled smoothly back from her face and tied with a red and navy scarf. Her gray eyes were framed by dark lashes, and her face had a look of composure that seemed to set her apart from the noisy activity surrounding her.
The doorman slammed the trunk, turned and nodded to her.
Laurel Atchison moved forward and handed him a couple of bills, climbed into the rear of the cab and settled back.
“La Guardia, please,” she said to the driver, a stocky young man with curly black hair and thick glasses.
“Okay. Which airline?”
“Air Canada.”
He laid an arm along the back of the seat and turned to glance at her. “You in a big hurry?” he asked.
Laurel shook her head. “My flight doesn’t leave for about two hours. I like to get to the airport early. I’d much rather wait in an airport lounge than in my hotel room.”
“That’s good.” He swung his cab into the traffic, weaving his way expertly among the crawling vehicles. “There’s accidents all over the city. The streets are real icy.”
She looked out the rain-smeared window at the lines of traffic. The driver braked and swore under his breath, glaring at a panel truck that had hemmed him in on the right. He slumped behind the wheel, tapping his fingers impatiently as he waited for the intersection to clear.
“Are those your children?” Laurel asked, looking at a plastic-covered photograph hanging from the dashboard. The picture showed a little dark-haired girl about four years old, sitting next to a fat solemn baby on a furry rug.
The driver glanced at her, startled. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s my Luisa and David. Great kids.”
“They’re very beautiful.”
“Luisa’s like her mama. She’s already got a lot of musical talent.”
The little girl wore a pink ruffled dress and held a small teddy bear. Laurel wondered what it would be like to have a couple of children like that, waiting for her at home.
“I’m working two jobs so I can save for their college education,” the young man went on, pulling into the traffic again. “I drive cab in the daytime and work night shifts as a security guard in a warehouse over in Queens.”
Laurel tried to imagine the life he described. Immediately she felt ashamed of her expensive leather shoes and shoulder bag, her briefcase fitted with a laptop computer and the soft woollen coat that had probably cost more than this man earned in a month of driving cab.
But the driver seemed untroubled by the contrast. He continued to chat happily about his wife and children as he drove toward the tollbooth.
“I don’t plan for us to live this way forever,” he told Laurel over the sound of the windshield wipers sweeping rhythmically at the sleet. “One of these days I’m gonna sell one of my screenplays, and then we’ll be rolling in money.”
“You’re a writer?” she asked.
“I’ve written six screenplays,” he said proudly. “I sent one to a big studio in Hollywood, and they told me it’s under consideration.”
“Good for you! That sounds really promising.”
“Yeah, it is. They don’t pay much for an option, but if I…Oh, hell,,” he muttered, then gave Laurel an apologetic glance.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s another big pileup at the tollboth, and I can’t get out of this lane. It’ll take a while to get through.”
“That’s all right,” Laurel told him. “I’ve got plenty of time.”
Again she felt a wave of embarrassment when she realized that for the driver, time was money. She leaned forward and handed him some money for the toll, resolving to tip him generously when they reached the airport.
“I hate this,” he complained, staring at the cars that were immobilized around them. “I hate sitting in traffic.”
“Since you’re a screenwriter,” Laurel said to distract him, “maybe you could help me solve a hypothetical problem about…about something I’m working on.”
“Yeah?” He brightened, looking at her over his shoulder.
“Suppose you were writing a screenplay,” Laurel began. “And one of your characters was in a…sort of awkward situation, and needed to get away for a while. Secretly, I mean. Where could a person go and not be found?”
“How long?”
“Just a month or two.”
“Hmm.” The driver frowned with professional interest, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “This screenplay, where’s it taking place? What’s your setting?”
Laurel hesitated. “It’s…set in a big city on the West Coast. In Vancouver, actually.”
“I don’t know much about Canadians,” the young man said.
“I think they’re pretty much like everybody else,” Laurel told him dryly.
“They play hockey all the time, and they’re real polite, and they don’t like guns. Right?”
“Right,” Laurel agreed, smiling.
“So tell me more about this main character. Rich or poor?”
“Quite well-off,” Laurel said after a brief hesitation. “Say…a managing partner in a big company, owns a large block of shares and a high-rise condo in the city, drives an expensive car, all the good stuff.”
“How old is this guy?”
“Thirty-one,” Laurel said, amused to note that as soon as he heard the description, the driver automatically assumed that her story character was a male.
But then, a lot of people made the same mistake…
“Married?”
“Pardon?”
“This guy in your story. Is he married? Divorced? Got any kids or responsibilities?”
“No kids or responsibilities,” Laurel said with a touch of sadness. “Married once, a long time ago, and divorced for almost five years.”
“Doesn’t see the ex?”
“The ex is remarried, teaching college courses in England.”
“Hmm,” the driver said again, pulling through the tollbooth and heading onto the expressway to the airport. “And how come this guy needs to disappear?”
“It’s a complicated situation,” Laurel said, glancing out the window at the dark sky above the warehouses. “Somebody close to him is being investigated by the police, and if this person—the main character—if he were called to testify under oath, he might have to incriminate the other person.”
“Why can’t he just lie?”
Laurel shook her head. “He’s not that kind of person.”
“What’s the other guy supposed to have done?”
“He’s being accused of insider trading,” Laurel said. “He’s suspected of profiteering…That means placing some heavy stock orders based on secret government information that was passed to him illegally. It’s a very serious charge.”
“But he didn’t do it?”
“It’s all a misunderstanding. He did place the orders, but there was nothing illegal about it. He placed them for a friend in the government who can verify that the broker didn’t know about any government contracts in advance.”
“So what’s his problem?”
“The timing of the transaction looks suspicious,” Laurel said, frowning out the window again. “But I’m…But the central character of our screenplay knows his partner is innocent, and he’s also the only one who knows exactly when the orders were placed. Without his testimony, there’s no way for the police to get a conviction.”
“So what’s he going to do? He can’t hide out forever, right? He’s got this big high-powered job to do.”
“He doesn’t need to hide forever,” Laurel said. “Just for a month or two, while this other person manages to round up the evidence that will clear him of wrongdoing.”
“Hey, that’s a real interesting plot, isn’t it? I wish I’d thought of it.”
“Yes,” Laurel said softly. “It’s really interesting.”
“Now, this guy—he’s got lots of money, right? He could go anywhere?”
“Anywhere,” Laurel agreed. “He just needs to drop out of sight for a while.”
“Is there a chance the police might be looking for him?”
“An excellent chance,” she said. “That’s the whole point of the story. The police want this person to testify at the preliminary hearing against his…his friend, you see. He’s not under suspicion himself, but he has to avoid being served with the subpoena.”
“Okay, I see the problem. But he can’t leave the country. He couldn’t use his passport, right? They’d be able to trace that.”
“I guess they would.”
“And he can’t go to a holiday resort or anything, because he’d start to get pretty conspicuous after a few weeks if he was still hanging around.”
“Yes, I’ve thought of that.”
“No friends or relatives who could hide him out somewhere?”
“Not for that long. He thinks it would be for a month or two, but you see, it would all depend on how quickly this other person was able to gather the necessary evidence to clear himself.”
The driver snapped his fingers. “I got it.”
The airport came into view, looming out of the mist. Laurel sat erect and looked at the man’s curly head with interest. “You know how to write the story?”
“Yeah. The guy goes to a little town, maybe out in the Midwest somewhere. That’s the best way for him to disappear.”
“In a little town?” she asked dubiously. “Wouldn’t he be really conspicuous?”
“No The thing is, nobody would expect a man like that to go to some one-horse town. He’d have to change his appearance—get rid of his expensive clothes and stuff. He wants to look like everybody else, right? So he puts on old clothes and gets a bad haircut, drifts into town looking for work. He gets a job doing janitorial work or something, rents a little basement suite, goes to the bar on Friday night. He becomes part of the community, and nobody notices him.”
“I see,” Laurel said thoughtfully. “You’re saying the best way to hide something is to put it right out in full view, in a place where it looks the same as everything around it.”
He pulled to a stop at the curb near the Air Canada terminal. “Hey, this could be a great story,” he said. “When are you planning to write it?”
“Soon.” Laurel cast him a rueful glance as she rummaged in her shoulder bag. “I think I’ll probably be writing it very soon.”
“Well, good luck. And remember, send that guy to a small town. It’s a surefire plot.”
“Thanks,” Laurel said.
She climbed out of the cab and watched as he took her luggage from the back. Then she gave him the cab fare, took her suitcases and walked into the terminal, leaving him staring in amazement at the bills in his hand.
She had a pile of work in her briefcase, including a profile of market statistics she’d acquired during her trip to New York and a list of new company accounts to enter. Laurel found a quiet table in the airport’s executive lounge and worked at her laptop computer until boarding time, occasionally sipping from a cup of lukewarm coffee.
But after she settled into her seat in the plane, she found it hard to get back to work. She watched the big plane lift off, rising far above the messy snarl of clouds and up into a world of blue sky and sunshine. Her seatmate, an elderly lady traveling West to visit her daughter, pulled up a blanket, adjusted her pillow and fell asleep at once, snoring gently.
Laurel reached into the briefcase for her computer, then reconsidered and took out a book she’d bought in the Vancouver airport before leaving on her business trip. The slim volume had promised light reading, but Laurel was fascinated by it.
The book was called Wolf Hill Schoolmarm, a published edition of an authentic century-old diary, apparently edited and offered for publication by descendants of a young teacher who’d worked in a one-room school on the Canadian prairie. The foreword, written by a woman called Katherine Cameron, told how the diary had been discovered in a cavity under the windowsill during the renovation of an old hotel in the small prairie town of Wolf Hill, Alberta.
“I hope that Ellen Livingston’s story will touch other hearts as surely as it has transformed my own life,” Mrs. Cameron wrote.
Laurel had at first dismissed this as excessively sentimental, but she found herself beguiled by the story’s simple charm. Ellen Livingston, the young schoolteacher, had certainly been an interesting woman. Her lively descriptions of local characters, pioneer farming methods and social occasions brought the town of Wolf Hill to vivid life, along with its gallery of colorful occupants.
Thoughtfully, Laurel turned the pages back to the introduction, which read:
To this day, Wolf Hill remains largely unchanged. Those who live here are just as strong-minded, generous and eccentric as the townspeople of Ellen Livingston’s day. Wolf Hill is, in fact, the quintessential small town. It is a place that shuns change, looks after its own and guards all those wholesome values so dear to the hearts of ordinary people.
Laurel felt a sudden quickening of interest. She took a pocket atlas from her briefcase and consulted it, then looked down at the little book again, holding it tightly in her hands as she gazed out the window at the sunlight glancing off the rosy sea of cloud beneath the airplane’s wing.
THEY TOUCHED DOWN in Vancouver around midafternoon, and Laurel hailed a cab to take her across town to her office. The streets of Vancouver weren’t icecovered like those in New York, but they were just as wet. Rain fell in long sparkling needles that stabbed the ground and flattened on the pavement. Laurel asked the doorman of her building to take her luggage down to her car, which she’d left in the lower parking garage while she was away. Then she rode up to her office, a huge corner room with a sweeping view across the harbor to North Vancouver. Grouse Mountain loomed in the background, wreathed in clouds and lightly sprinkled with snow.
Laurel stashed her shoulder bag and overcoat in a closet and emptied her briefcase onto the desk. Her office was clean and orderly, with all the plants watered, books and ornaments dusted, files in order, mail opened and stacked neatly.
“Of course,” she said aloud, addressing an open door at the side of the room, “I do have the best secretary in the world. It helps a lot.”
“Hey, did I hear my employer’s voice?”
Her secretary popped in through the door, carrying an armful of files and a folded newspaper.
Dennis Ames was a cheerful young man in his early twenties, medium height, with a square, pleasant face and an easygoing manner that belied his awesome efficiency. He wore corduroy slacks and knitted vests, had a seemingly endless procession of girlfriends, played hockey in his free time and kept Laurel’s busy life in perfect order.
“Hi, Dennis,” she said. “I brought you a gift from New York.”
“No kidding?” He gave her a winsome smile. “Isn’t that sexual harassment, if you start giving me presents?”
“Actually,” Laurel said, digging into her briefcase, “speaking of harassment, I’m just softening you up for the kill. I need a date tonight, and I was hoping you might volunteer.”
“First let me see the present. Then we’ll decide how far I’m prepared to let this go.”
She handed him a gift pack from the hotel boutique, which he opened to reveal a yellow T-shirt covered with dancing cows. Party Till The Cows Come Home, the logo read.
Dennis chuckled. “It’s definitely me,” he told her with pleasure. “Thanks, Laurel. Now, what’s this about a date?”
“Wilmott and Abrams are having some kind of party tonight, and I should probably go. They’re major clients.”
“I have a prior engagement,” he said promptly. “Why don’t you find yourself a real boyfriend?”
“I don’t have time. Bring your date along,” Laurel pleaded. “Come on, Dennis. It won’t take much of your evening. I just need to make an appearance. I’ll pay you double overtime,” she added.
“My date works till nine,” Dennis protested, but he was looking more interested.
“Where does she work?”
He grinned. “She teaches aerobics at a gym downtown. This girl is really, really gorgeous.”
“Oh, Dennis.” Laurel shook her head sadly.
He held the T-shirt against his chest and admired himself in the mirror. “Is this party a sit-down-and-eat thing, or what?”
“It’s just a lot of people standing around with drinks in their hands, shouting at each other.”
“The kind you hate the most,” Dennis said. “Is that why you don’t want to go alone?”
“If I’m alone, Mort Schall will spend the whole evening trying to entice me into the library.”
“Hey, you could do worse, Laurel. Mort’s old, but very rich.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s my luscious young body he’s interested in. Mort wants some insider tips on stock trading off new government contracts, and God knows, that’s the last thing we should be—”
She fell abruptly silent, and her secretary became deeply interested in a snag on his thumbnail.
“Okay,” he said at last, folding the T-shirt. “I’ll meet you here right at seven. You can make your appearance at the party, and I’ll still have time to pick up Jennifer.”
“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver,” Laurel said gratefully. “Jennifer?” she added. “I thought that was old news.”
“This is a.brand-new Jennifer. Blond, this time.”
“Dennis, Dennis.” Laurel shook her head again and sorted idly through her mail. “Were you people busy around here while I was gone?”
“Nothing major. How’s everything in New York?”
“The joint is jumping,” Laurel told him. “Their markets are going through the roof. They still seem to be a little nervous about our national bond rating, though.”
“With good reason. Look, I finished up the Connors stuff, and there’s a prospectus on your desk about that new Asian mutual fund. Oh, and the big guy is looking for you. He wants to see you the minute you come in. Emphasis on that. The very minute.”
Laurel smiled at her secretary. “He probably needs advice on which tie to wear to his Shriners’ banquet tonight.”
They laughed together, then sobered.
“Dennis…”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Dennis, if I were to take a little holiday sometime in the next few weeks, I wouldn’t want you to worry. You know?”
“Hell, Laurel, if you took a holiday, I’d be overjoyed. I can’t remember the last time you had one.”
“I mean,” she went on, looking down at her desk, “if I happened to do it sort of…unexpectedly. If I just dropped out of sight for a while and didn’t tell you where I was going, I’d want you to realize that it was all planned in advance and I was just fine. Nothing to worry about.”
Dennis stood in the connecting doorway, holding his T-shirt and giving her an unhappy look. “He’s really in trouble, isn’t he?”
Laurel turned away to pluck a dead leaf from the ficus plant near her window.
“It’s so damned unfair,” she murmured. “He’s the most honest, hardworking person in the world.”
“I know he is. But, Laurel, why can’t he just…”
She waved her hand. “It’s best if we don’t discuss it, Dennis. All I can do is thank you for your loyalty and tell you not to worry if I take a holiday sometime soon. And if anybody should ask,” she concluded, crossing the room with a businesslike stride, “you don’t know a thing about it. Okay?”
He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “I don’t know a thing,” he said. “Around here, I just water the plants and keep my eyes closed.”
He vanished through the door to the reception area, leaving Laurel alone in her office.
A few minutes later, she gathered an armful of files from her desk and headed down the hall to the office of her partner in the brokerage firm, the only person in the company whose position was senior to her own.
Laurel entered the lavish suite of rooms and tossed her files onto the desk.
A tall handsome man with graying hair stood near a leather couch. He was holding a golf club, and concentrating on hitting balls into an upended cup.
“Hi, Dad,” Laurel said. “How are you?”
Stewart Atchison looked up in delight. “Laurie!” He hurried over to embrace her, carrying the golf club. “Glad to see you, sweetheart. How was the trip?”
“It was wet and cold,” Laurel said, hugging him back.
Her father was the only person who ever called her Laurie. Even though she adored him, Laurel had always disliked having her name shortened.
“We heard New York was completely socked in with fog and rain. Marta worried that your flight might be delayed.”
“There was no problem. How’s Marta feeling?”
“She’s blooming. Positively radiant.”
Stewart’s wife was four years younger than his daughter, and massively pregnant with their first child. Laurel wasn’t altogether sure how she felt about the imminent arrival of this new little brother or sister, especially at a time when she seemed to be developing some strong maternal yearnings of her own. But she liked Marta, and made every effort to keep her reservations well-hidden.
Her father returned to his putting area and gripped the club, taking a few practice swings. Laurel sat in his swivel chair, rested her feet on the desk and leaned back, suddenly weary.
“You’re still bending your right elbow too much, Dad.”
He straightened his arm and putted the ball neatly into the cup, beaming with satisfaction. “Have you read the prospectus on the new Asian mutual fund, Laurie?”
“Not yet. I just got here a few minutes ago. Dennis left it on my desk, though. I’ll get to it before I leave for the day.”
“Good. Are you going to Wilmott’s party tonight? Mort was asking if you’d be there.”
“Yes, Dad.” She sighed. “I’m going.”
“Keep your ear to the ground, okay? If you can get Mort alone, find out what he’s doing with his Latin American funds.”
“I really hadn’t intended to spend any time alone with Mort Schall,” Laurel said dryly.
Her father gave her a sympathetic smile. “You look so tired. Maybe you shouldn’t go. I can go to the party tonight, dear. It’s just that Marta’s been…”
“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll go. Dennis is coming with me.”
“Good. I know Mort’s a bore, but we could use a bit of an inside track on this one.”
Laurel relented and smiled back. “Have you heard anything about…you know?” she asked after a brief silence.
He shook his head, tossed his golf club aside and sat on the couch. “I keep trying to get hold of Chet Landry, but he won’t return my calls. I thought public servants were supposed to be accessible.”
“Isn’t he still in Japan?”
Stewart nodded. “He’s with the government trade delegation. They won’t be home until sometime next week, and that could be too late.”
Laurel stared at him, her face draining of color. “Why?” she whispered. “Have they…has anybody approached you?”
Her father flexed his arm a couple of times, then frowned at the carpet. “Not yet. But it’s in the wind. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Dad, what makes you think it’s going to be that soon?”
He shook his head, then gave her a worried glance. “I wish I could get hold of Landry. He promised me he’d tell the truth about our deal, and then I’d be totally in the clear.”
Laurel clenched her hands to keep them from shaking. “You should never have placed those orders for him,” she whispered.
“I know that now. But I honestly thought the whole transaction was above board. I didn’t know he was using inside information, Laurie.”
“Oh, Dad…”
Stewart’s boyish face took on a look of determined cheerfulness. He got up from the couch and crossed the room to drop a hand on Laurel’s shoulder. “Maybe we’re making a mountain out of a molehill, honey. When Landry gets back, I’ll pressure him into clearing up this whole thing, and there’ll be no problem.”
“But if he doesn’t, we could lose our company, Dad! You could even go to jail!”
His jaw set. “I’m not going to jail when my wife’s pregnant, just to take the rap for some crooked bureaucrat. Landry’s got a lot to answer for.”
“But if the police are ready to—”
Stewart turned and looked directly at his daughter. “They can’t prove anything. You’re the only one in the firm who knows when or how I placed the orders.”
“And I won’t be available to testify,” Laurel said dully.
She toyed with an onyx penholder on her father’s desk and stared out the window at the brooding clouds.
“It’s only for a little while, sweetheart.” Her father sat on the corner of the desk and leaned toward her earnestly. “Just until I can get my hands on that damn Landry and force him to tell the truth. You’ll be home in no time.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely. Come on, how can I run the company without you? Half our clients won’t deal with anybody else.”
Laurel looked up at him, trying to smile. “What if Marta has the baby while I’m gone? I’d hate to miss something like that.”
“Don’t you worry. I just won’t allow it. The baby will have to wait till Auntie Laurie’s back in town. Besides,” he added, getting off the desk and moving past Laurel to stare out the window, “you won’t be gone that long. We’ll get this all straightened out, as soon as Landry comes home.”
“I’ve decided where to go, Dad,” Laurel said. “I was reading this book, a published edition of an old diary, and there’s a little town in—”
“Don’t tell me!” Stewart said hastily. He gave her an apologetic smile. “I don’t want to hear about it, honey. You know how hard it is for me to tell a lie. When they ask me where you are, I want to be straight with them. I want to say that I have no idea where you’ve gone.”
Laurel nodded and got to her feet. Stewart walked across the room again and held her briefly, dropping an awkward kiss on her cheek.
“God, I’m so proud of you,” he whispered. “No man ever had a finer daughter, kiddo.”
Laurel drew away and smiled at him. “I love you, too, Dad,” she said, standing on tiptoe to press her face close to his.
AS WAS the current fashion in the business world, Wilmott and Abrams had chosen to host their annual cocktail party at their downtown offices instead of at one of the owners’ homes. Laurel and Dennis arrived late and blended into the crowd, edging their way to a corner of the room near the buffet table.
Laurel was wearing a simple black dress accented with heavy, ethnic-looking jewelry. She’d been too rushed to have her hair done, and had chosen instead to sweep it up into a French knot softened by a few tendrils around her face.
“Smashing,” Dennis muttered, standing at her elbow in his customary sport coat and blue jeans. “Don’t let old Mortie get anywhere near you, or he’ll gobble you up.”
Laurel punched his arm and looked at the buffet table. “Hey, a shrimp tree,” she murmured. “And deviled eggs.”
“Great. All the basic food groups. Fill up,” he said. “I’ll track down some beverages.”
“Hurry back,” Laurel told him. “Don’t forget I’m paying you for protection.”
He strolled away, returning in a few moments with two champagne glasses. Laurel stood near one of the windows, eating hungrily from her paper plate. Dennis handed her a glass and looked with concentrated attention at a leggy redhead in a group near the door.
“Don’t you dare,” Laurel muttered. “You have a date with Jennifer in less than two hours.”
“I was just looking,“ he said with an injured air.
“Yeah, like a bird dog. I know that look. Dennis, these little sausage things are just great.”
Dennis took one of the sausages. “How’s the big boss?”
“He’s fine,” Laurel said absently.
“Really? No problems? Nothing I should know about, for instance?”
“Nothing major,” Laurel said, suddenly serious. “If anybody asks you—”
“I’ll tell them he seems a little nervous these days. Of course,” Dennis added casually, “he’s almost sixty years old and about to become a new daddy. That’s enough to make a guy a little edgy.”
“You’re right,” Laurel said, relieved. “Of course it is. Oh, no,” she added, seeing a waitress approaching them, holding a cellular phone. “Do you suppose that’s for me?”
“Probably. No doubt some client has developed a sudden urge to buy out the futures market in pork bellies, and he can’t wait till morning to place his order.”
Laurel took the phone and smiled her thanks to the waitress.
“Hello,” she said into the mouthpiece.
She heard her father’s voice and her body tensed. “Right away?” she whispered. “Tonight?”
She was silent for a few seconds, listening. Finally, she switched off the phone and placed it on the window ledge, then turned to Dennis.
“You’re right, something’s come up,” she murmured. “I have to go home. I’ll just take a cab back to the office and pick up my things, okay?”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure. Thanks for everything. I’ll see you…I’ll see you soon,” Laurel said. She hurried away to find her coat.
