ELLIOT
“She is asking for you.”
Nicole said it over the phone at seven in the morning without preamble. The version of her voice he had come to recognize as the one she used when something had happened that she had not planned for and was handling with the particular efficiency of a woman who handled everything that way.
He sat up in bed.
“Zara,” he said.
“She woke up at six and asked if you were coming today.” A pause. “I told her I did not know. She said she needed to ask you something and it could not wait until Saturday.” Another pause. Shorter. “I am not engineering this, Elliot. I want you to know that.”
“I know,” he said.
“She saw the article. Someone at school showed her something on a tablet and she came home with questions I did not know how to answer fully.” Nicole’s voic
