“You wouldn’t believe how many examples there are of convicts slipping through the cracks. And worse, in the case of DCFS—kids slipping through the cracks. There are a lot of stories to tell here—I just can’t keep up with all of them.”

“What about Castellon? You’ve worked with him before,” Marty suggested.

“He’s swamped with the pension-fund crisis series. How about Pearson?” Ford suggested.

Marty considered that. “She’d be a good fit for this. I’ll talk to her today.”

When Ford got back to his desk, he saw that he’d just missed a call from Nicole on his cell phone.

“Did you hear?” his sister answered, when he called her back.

No clue. “Hear what?”

“Victoria met with Peter Sutter and his wife today. She gave them the results of the paternity test and apparently everything went well. Like, really well. They want to meet Zoe. This is actually happening, Ford—she’s going to have a dad.”

Hearing the excitement in his sister’s voice, Ford smiled. So Victoria Slade had gotten her man, after all.

Good for her.

“That’s great, Nicole.” They talked for a while about the logistics—apparently, Victoria had suggested that Nicole and Peter get together to “catch up” before he met Zoe.

“Can you imagine how awkward that conversation will be?” Nicole asked. “‘Hey, Pete, good to see you again. Funny thing, huh, you and me having a baby?’”

As least there was going to be a conversation. Ford was still reserving judgment on Sutter, but so far, the guy seemed to have his heart in the right place.

Shortly after he hung up with his sister, Samantha Pearson stopped by his desk. Even though she’d only joined the Watchdog Team last year, she already had a reputation at the Trib of being tenacious and extremely thorough when it came to investigating a story.

“I just talked to Marty about the DCFS and probation department series,” she said. “He says that if I help you, I’ll probably piss off a lot of government bureaucrats.”

“That’s true,” Ford said.

Samantha smiled. “Then I’m in.”

Ford wrapped up for the day at five thirty and took the Blue Line home. The train was crowded, typical for rush hour, and as he stood in the middle of the packed car while holding on to the railing above him, he realized that it had been exactly one week since Victoria had her panic attack.

He’d been doing some research into panic disorder—not that he was sitting around ruminating over her or anything. The investigative journalist in him was just . . . curious. And his research had helped him understand that it was the panic attack itself that the person feared—not necessarily the environment, like a train car—and that while the attacks were not dangerous, they could be terrifying to the sufferer because he or she felt so out of control.

His fingers clenched around the steel railing when he thought about how afraid Victoria must’ve felt that day. He’d been standing right next to her, rattling on about his interview with the director of the Department of Children and Family Services, and he’d had no clue that anything was wrong until the moment right before she’d fainted. If only she’d said something, maybe he could’ve—

Well, anyway. The point was, he sure hoped this fancy, expensive therapist of hers was helping her out. Not that it was any of his business anymore.

Obviously.

Oh—and also that her therapist was familiar with the benefits of cognitive restructuring and interoceptive exposure. Because from what Ford had read, people with panic disorder were having a lot of success with those therapies.

Yep. So not his business.

He stopped at home and changed into his workout clothes, then headed to the gym a couple blocks from his place. He stayed for two hours, running and lifting weights to the point of exhaustion. After toweling off in the locker room, he walked back to his building.

He slowed down as he approached the glass door.

Victoria stood in the foyer, next to the mailboxes. Judging from her pantsuit and the briefcase slung over her shoulder, she’d just gotten off work.

He paused, watching for a moment as she flipped through her mail, and then headed inside.

“Long day?” he said.

“Oh! Hi.” She started, and then smiled hesitantly at him. “Just a typical Monday. You know me.” She bit her lip, as if regretting her choice of words.

Yes, he did know her.

He smiled to cover the awkwardness. “I heard the news—Nicole told me that things went really well with Sutter and his wife today.”

“It did. We still have a lot of details to talk about, but you know . . . I think it’s going to work out.” Her lips quirked. “Although Sutter looked a little nervous when he heard you’re Nicole’s brother.”

“Is that right?” Ford considered that. “Good.”

She smiled, and then a silence fell between them.

He pointed toward the elevator. “Are you heading up?”

“Uh, yes, actually.” She shut her mailbox and they walked together to the elevator. Ford caught her eyeing his damp T-shirt.

“Sorry. I just came from the gym,” he said as they stepped into the small elevator.

She pushed the button for their floor. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you sweaty before.”

He looked at her.

She blushed, as if just realizing what she’d said. “That was awkward. Sorry.” She shook her head self-deprecatingly.

And despite everything, they shared a smile.

The ice broken—at least, in part—she turned toward him, speaking genuinely. “I’m really sorry about Monday, Ford. The way things ended, I mean.”

She’d texted him a similar apology six days ago, and at the time he’d been kind of a dick in return. But now, standing across from her in the elevator and seeing the sincerity in her eyes, he found himself softening.

Yes, it was over between them. And that realization stung a little. Maybe more than a little, although he wouldn’t allow himself to go there. But other than the abruptness of their breakup—if one could call it that—he really had no reason to be mad at Victoria. Not once, the entire time they’d been hooking up, had she given him any reason to believe that their relationship was anything except a fun, casual fling. So if he’d been starting to think . . . Well, he didn’t know what he’d been starting to think, and it didn’t matter now. The point was, she was his next-door neighbor, at least for the rest of the summer, and it was inevitable they would run into each other. He wasn’t going to be a jerk and make the situation even more awkward.