The building looked different at night.
Emma stood on the sidewalk for a moment before going in, tipping her head back to look at it — forty-two floors of dark glass and lit windows, the Meridian Building stripped of its daytime crowd and reduced to something quieter, more skeletal. More honest, maybe. The lobby security guard checked her name against a list her father had apparently called ahead to arrange, handed her a visitor badge, and pointed her to the elevators with the bored efficiency of someone four hours into an overnight shift.
"Forty-two," she said to no one, stepping in.
The elevator hummed upward.
She'd tried to get out of this. *Dad, just email them. Dad, can't it wait until morning? Dad, it's nearly nine o'clock.* But her father's anxiety about his job had a specific f
