I stood on the Crestholm pavement in the October cold and I read the message three times and the world tilted on its axis in the specific way it tilted when you found out that the thing you thought was one shape was, in fact, a different shape entirely and had been all along.
Someone targeted your family specifically.
My mother.
My family.
This has a name.
I was already running.
Not the composed, strategic, structured-ankle-boot walk of a woman who had a plan. Running. On the actual pavement. In Crestholm. At one PM. Past a woman with a pushchair who shouted something I did not hear and a man with a dog who had to make a rapid swerve.
The annex was three blocks.
I covered them in ninety seconds.
The doorman opened the door before I reached it.
The elevator was waiting.
I got in.
