23
The 9:00 AM appointment arrived ten minutes late. William stood in the doorway of his office when the chime sounded. Piper’s move caught his attention. Her left hand reached underneath her desk where he realized she kept a gun. Was that due to her own paranoid nature, which he hadn’t picked up on during their interview, or because of his off-ramp assailant? Though he hadn’t considered it before, the ten-foot length of wall blocked Piper from seeing the front door. As a safety precaution, that would need to be changed. Perhaps the crew working on the apartment upstairs could remove it, give whoever was in the reception area a clear view of the front door. When an older gentleman wearing a black felt Fedora and using a cane crossed the distance toward her desk, she removed her hand from
