May 2008
“Excuse me. I’m here for a noon appointment with Patricia Goldman,” Leah said in a voice she hoped transmitted confidence.
“Ms. Tubman? Please take a seat, and I will let her know you are here,” the smooth-faced, baritone-voiced man said.
Crossing her legs at her ankles, Leah exhaled quietly to settle her nerves. The thirty-seven-year-old was on the other side of a stomach flu she had picked up from her five-year-old daughter. Leah hoped the shot of the pink stuff she threw back in the car in the parking lot would do the trick at least for the next hour. The day before, she had shuttled between the bed to the bathroom, but today, she was corporately clothed in a navy pants suit and solid pumps.
Ordinarily, she would be in her seventh-floor Tryon Street office in the heart of d
