I promise.

By the time he finally reached Daisy’s school, a heavily armed SWAT team was escorting children out, releasing them one by one to their parents.

Daisy ran towards him, her fairy wings gone, the tulle skirt of her costume torn. She was tearful but in one piece. He scooped her up and held her tightly, so grateful to have her in his arms.

His little girl needed to be safe, and as he rocked her, comforting her, Cormac realized he was done with the traffic and noise and chaos of Southern California. He was throwing in his towel, walking away from the congested sprawl of Los Angeles and Orange County and returning to Montana. Not just anywhere in Montana, but Marietta. It was the one place he never thought he’d call home again, but he was a father now, and he needed to put Daisy first.

Marietta was a good place for families, a good place for children. He’d put his house in San Clemente on the market immediately.

But he wasn’t just moving Daisy to Marietta. He was relocating his corporate office, too. If his staff didn’t like the idea of relocating to Montana, then they could find another job.

Chapter Two

‡‡

Whitney Alder stood woozily in the very long line at the Denver pharmacy, waiting to pick up a prescription, feeling much like a sailor at sea.

She’d caught a bug earlier in the month after attending a conference in New York City. She’d taken a few days off, then returned to work but the bug had lingered on, settling into her chest, turning into bronchitis and now, walking pneumonia.

Her doctor today agreed it was time to get her on antibiotics, and had phoned in a prescription and Whitney was grateful to finally get some medicine, but could barely think, much less see straight. The blaring Christmas music didn’t help, Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, mocking the orange and black Halloween decorations festooning the long pharmacy glass window.

Whitney didn’t know which was more jarring: Christmas carols on October 30th, or that someone in the pharmacy had taken the time to cover the long window with beady-eyed rats, fanged spiders, and dancing skeletons.

Inching closer to the front of the line—apparently everyone in Denver was sick today—Whitney fished out her phone as it vibrated in her coat pocket. Andi, her assistant at Sheenan Media, had sent a text. Something big is happening! Call me!!!

Whitney didn’t feel like calling anyone, but Andi was not an alarmist. If Andi was writing with multiple exclamation marks, something indeed was happening.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Whitney asked, phoning Andi.

“I just thought you should know that there’s a big meeting with Sheenan Media’s executive team going on behind closed doors. It started an hour ago and they’re all still in the boardroom.”

As Creative Director for the media group, Whitney was part of the publishing division’s executive team. Normally she’d be at a meeting like that but she’d been out of the office for the past few days with her bug. “Do you know what it’s about?”

“I don’t know all the details yet, but Jeff had already gone home for the day and then suddenly he’s back, calling an emergency meeting and they’re all still locked in the boardroom at four o’clock on a Friday. That’s not normal.”

Whitney had to agree with her. That wasn’t normal. “And you have no idea at all what this is about?”

“I heard it has to do with Cormac Sheenan. He emailed all his corporate executive vice presidents but I don’t know what he said. Only it must be big, because Jeff is never in on Friday afternoons, and not late on the afternoon of his annual Halloween party.”

“Try to find out what’s what,” Whitney said.

“I will.”

**

Whitney didn’t hear from Andi again and spent the weekend trying not to worry about the Friday afternoon emergency meeting and what it could mean. From experience, though, a late afternoon meeting of the executive team, called on the spur of the moment, and held behind closed doors, meant change.

Had Sheenan Media been sold?

Or had Cormac Sheenan sold off the magazine division from Sheenan Media?

She didn’t want to speculate, and she didn’t want to worry, because it might be nothing. It might be a change that had nothing to do with her, or her own creative team. Maybe Jeff was being replaced. Maybe one of the other executive vice presidents was being replaced. It could be anything. She shouldn’t let her imagination run away with her. Monday would be here soon enough and she’d get the facts then.

**

Whitney arrived at the office early Monday morning, thinking she’d get in before everyone else arrived and be able to go through the mail on her desk and get caught up while it was quiet. But stepping out of the elevator to the fourteenth floor, she discovered that most of the lights were on, and people were at their desks even though it wasn’t even seven thirty yet.

She was just sitting down at her desk when Jeff Klein, the group publisher, and her immediate boss, rapped on her open door.