Maybe it was time for him to move on. As much as he loved this town, he

wasn't going anywhere. Maybe this was the opportunity he needed. Maybe it was

where he was supposed to be. In Chicago. Where Kate lived.

He pushed through the locker room door.

Yup, Lucius was right. That was a lot of maybes.

* * *

Great, Kate thought, examining the fresh gouge in her driver's side door as she closed it. Another ding in my car. No note, of course.

She hoisted her purse and made her way to the elevator of the downtown Chicago parking garage under Garman's offices, dodging a drooling slick of some nameless liquid someone had dumped out of their car door.

She went through her mental checklist. It was Wednesday, which meant a

meeting with her whole group on project updates, policy changes, and blah blah

blah. Then she had to sign off on the Hampstead deal that Milly had been working on while she was working on Nitrovex. Then another meeting, this one

with human resources to go over a new sexual harassment policy she needed to make sure she followed—like that was an issue for her—but they had to tell her

face to face by law or something.

She sighed as the elevator doors opened to Garman's offices. She'd done more design work in one day with her face painting at the carnival than she'd done here in months. But, like Danni said, that was the price of moving up. The joys

of management.

Management. Such a limp, hopeless word. Implying that the highest thing you could achieve was to just to manage, to just get by.

Is that what she was doing here? Getting by?

She'd reached her office, nodding to another co-worker passing her down the

hall as she pushed open the door. The neat, utilitarian space was the same as always, except today it was filled with the gloom of the softly raining morning.

She flipped on the overhead lights, and they brightened the room, but harshly.

Moving to her desk, she dropped her keys and her purse there. She had a sudden

impulse to open the window, to let some of the fresh air in, no matter how rainy

it was. But she knew that was impossible. Windows this high didn't open, of course. For her own safety.

Her eyes automatically drifted to her philodendron plant she'd moved to the

windowsill. She'd forgotten how much she'd liked the green color, how

refreshingly alive it was. It had turned brown now.

Her phone buzzed. She checked the screen. “Hey, Milly,” she said. “I'll be right there.”

Her first meeting was in three minutes, and Danni didn't like it when you were late.

Maybe, if she was lucky, this afternoon she'd get to sit behind her desk and

do some actual work on the next Nitrovex presentation she'd be making to Danni

and the board. Garman had made it through another round of cuts, but they didn't

have the job yet.

And the handsome, blue-eyed elephant in the room? Well, she didn't have time to think about him, did she?

Chapter Eighteen

“Mr. Clark, good to see you. Thanks for coming.” A tall man in a tan tweed coat

directed Peter to a chair across from his desk. He sat.

Sun streamed in through the tall windows banked by maroon velvet curtains.

Dixon's upper-grade students filed by the window outside, each in their navy-blue uniforms. It was all prim and proper and perfect.

The visit part of Peter's Dixon interview was over. The school had lived up

to its brochure. Stately grounds, arcing old trees, attentive students marching on their way to class. Top-notch facilities, with separate labs for organic and inorganic chem. He had to share a room with the physics class back in Golden

Grove. And the chess club.

“Your CV is impressive,” the man, Stephen Volders, was saying. Stephen, not Steve, Peter had found out. He was the Director of Admissions and seemed

as serious about his job as the wall of diplomas staring at Peter from behind his

desk.

Volders was sifting through the folder Peter had brought along as a backup

for his emailed references. He nodded, then glanced over his reading glasses.

“Adam Butler. You worked with him?”

Peter nodded. “A summer internship in Colorado. Before my second year of

grad school.” When Dad was beginning to take his turn for the worse.

Volders nodded again. “Well, you certainly seem qualified, Mr. Clark.” He put the folder on his desk and tapped the papers inside until they were square.