May 2
Trump International Hotel and Tower
New York City
12:49 P.M. EDT
Katie Casey had spent much of the morning in a thick terrycloth robe, its embroidered, gold-thread Trump logo inappropriately cupping her breast.
Intermittently, she switched between watching the ongoing televised coverage of the Presidential assassination and viewing the ongoing televised search-and-rescue—increasingly becoming a search-and-recovery—the first, still inconclusive as to a culprit’s motives; the second, now an emotion-laden wake that mourned an irradiated city she had until quite recently called her home.
In between, she had spent the hours trying to reassemble her life, both personal and professional.
The former was in an undeniable state of flux. It was also, at present, as unable to be pieced back together as a shattered mirror. Neither Connor nor her father was around to help deal with her issues or answer her questions—though in the event, even Katie agreed that was probably fortunate. Beck’s note had engendered the predicted irate reaction. Neither her suspicions nor her fury had abated an iota.
That left the latter, which involved a series of telephone calls to the various colleagues in her cellphone’s contact list.
Katie had managed to reach three of the seven senior partners of her D.C.-based law firm; one of them had made it to New York, another had escaped south to unaccustomed privation at a dismal motel in North Carolina, and the third had been in a fortuitous post-client-meeting dinner in San Diego when the bomb had detonated.
But none of them could offer next-step counsel on reassembling the firm, nor any reassurance that it could be reassembled at all. Neither had they any information to share on their missing four senior fellows; like Katie’s attempts, their own calls had gone, ominously, straight to voicemail with no subsequent replies.
So too had Katie’s calls to selected junior associates at the firm—equals and underlings, whose own resources in survival situations presumably would be even more limited than that of their august leadership.
It’s conceivable that out of a twenty-lawyer firm—Katie blushed, and with guilt added an additional thirty-member administrative and support team to that number—Lord, is it possible there’s only four of us left?
She fought down a wave of panic, recognizing the selfishness of her thoughts almost immediately; still, the sense of forlorn desperation at her own situation held her in throat-tight grip.
Sweet Jesus she asked herself, has it—has everything, for God’s sake—all blown away? My whole life, every damn part of it … gone? Just turned into pure, unadulterated shit? Into … into absolutely … nothing … nothing at all?
For the first time in her adult life—newly engaged, or quite possibly not; questionably employed, though that seemed even less a possibility; homeless and rootless, both—Katie had a frightening realization.
I’m on my own, Katie Casey told herself. And I have absolutely no idea what to do now…