One of the men on the screen looked directly into the camera. I forgot how to breathe. The image was grainy, filmed from somewhere across the street from my apartment, but I knew that entrance. I knew the faded stone...
The girl’s finger pointed at the empty plate in front of Vanessa. For several seconds, nobody spoke. Richard Blackwood heard only the muted clink of silverware from the main dining room and the distant hum of Manhattan beyond the glass....
The blue folder landed on the dining table with almost no sound. That was what everyone remembered later—not a slammed door, not shouting, not some dramatic crash of dishes. Just Dorothy May Hastings setting a thin folder beside a bowl...