But when I got to the conference room, the first thing I noticed was that none of the partners seemed to be there-in fact, it was mostly support staff and a handful of junior bankers. Since many of the partners did the bulk of their work while golfing in Palm Beach, skiing in Aspen, or steaming at the University Club, it was not unusual for our floor to be a partner-free zone in the mornings. At least their absence assured me I hadn’t missed an important meeting.

The second thing I noticed was that everyone’s attention was focused on the TV, which was tuned to New York 1, the local news cable channel.

“What’s going on?” I whispered to the guy on my left, rising on tiptoe to get a better look at the screen. He shushed me. He must have been new, because I didn’t know his name, but I glared at him-I was in no mood to be shushed-and turned my attention back to the TV.

A perky-looking reporter was holding forth, attempting gravitas. “-just a few minutes ago, at the scene of this shocking crime.”

“What crime?” I asked the guy on the other side of me. I didn’t know his name, either, but he wore the navy polo shirt and khakis that were the standard uniform of Winslow, Brown’s mail-room clerks.

“The dead dude’s assistant.”

“Dahlia?”

“Yeah. You know, the one with the-”

The guy on my left shushed us both, which was probably a good thing, given where the guy on my right seemed to be going and my likely reaction.

The camera switched from the perky reporter to a shot of her surroundings. “-Below Citicorp Center,” she was saying. I realized she was standing in front of the entrance to the subway station I’d just come from.

“Oh my God,” I said. “I was just there.” The guy on my left shushed me again, and I ignored him. “What happened?” I asked the other guy.

“Somebody pushed her in front of a subway car. But it didn’t run her over. It stopped in time.”

“Is she all right? And how do we know it’s her? Dahlia, I mean?”

“They found her Winslow, Brown security pass and called. And they’re not saying if she’s all right.”

“That’s why we’re trying to listen to the TV, here,” the guy on my left pointed out.

“Oh.”

The reporter was now interviewing a commuter, a witness, I guessed. Her microphone was pointed at his face, and he was speaking into it excitedly. “Like, I was waiting for the train, you know? And this one woman was talking to this other woman, and like I wasn’t paying attention, you know?”

The reporter started to give a perky nod, but remembering that she was supposed to be serious, raised her eyebrows instead.

“Anyhow,” the man continued,“The train was coming, and the next thing I know, it’s like everybody’s screaming, you know, and I guess the one woman fell onto the tracks, and then the other woman, she like ran past me? And somebody was yelling, ‘She pushed her, she pushed her?’”

“Can you describe this other woman? The alleged pusher?” I could tell that the reporter liked using the word “alleged.”

“She was pretty normal looking. Like, medium size and everything.”

“Did she have any distinguishing characteristics?” The reporter seemed to like saying “distinguishing characteristics,” too. “Unusual features or items of clothing that you noticed?”

“She had, like, long red hair? Sort of curly? And, like, a bright green hat and scarf?”

A silence fell over the room.

I turned toward the door, wondering if someone new had come in and if that was the reason for the sudden quiet.

Then I realized everyone was looking at me.

Or, more precisely, at my hair, which was long and red and sort of curly, and at the tail end of my scarf, which was trailing harmlessly from my shoulder bag.

It was bright green.

T he silence continued, unbroken except by the perky reporter, who was summarizing what the witness had told her for the benefit of those just tuning in. But nobody seemed to be paying attention anymore.

My face felt stiff, as if my smile muscles had been injected with Botox. “Well, I guess I’ll be getting to work now.”

The whispering started as soon as I turned my back.

I sat in my office with the door closed, a Diet Coke gripped tightly in one hand and my browser open to the New York 1 Web site, which offered an online audio feed of its live broadcast. The reporter didn’t have much new information, so she kept repeating what she already knew: Dahlia had been pushed onto the subway tracks and narrowly avoided being run over by an oncoming car that had screeched to a stop mere inches away, and her unidentified assailant, who was apparently a mirror image of me, had managed to escape in the ensuing chaos. Dahlia herself had been rushed to a hospital, unconscious.

I muted the sound from my PC and started to call Peter. The shock of the news had wiped the morning’s earlier events from my mind. But then it all came flooding back.

I definitely couldn’t call him unless I was ready to apologize, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. No simple “I’m sorry” would suffice after everything I’d said. And I wasn’t even sure it would be fair to apologize, because it wasn’t in Peter’s best interests to forgive me. It was one thing for me to be completely screwed up inside my head, but it was inexcusable to take the screwiness out of my head and dump it on Peter. I was an emotional menace, and potentially a danger to society.

I thought about calling one of my friends, but it would be impossible to explain everything that had happened that morning over the phone, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the inevitable lecture that was likely to follow, even if it was justified.

My next thought was to call Jake, but as soon as I started to dial, I could hear the hurt in Peter’s voice as he suggested I had feelings for him, and that my feelings were getting in the way of my judgment.

I put the phone down before I could finish dialing. I still hadn’t untangled the knot of emotions that had caused me to flip out at Peter, but it seemed like now would be a good time to figure out what, precisely, I felt for Jake before I tangled the knot further.

I couldn’t deny the flash of jealousy yesterday. Or the warmth in my cheeks at lunch on Monday.

But there’d also been Jake’s welcome support in a work environment that had been more than a little stressful of late. He’d helped me deal with Gallagher’s pass and all of the hostility that came after it, not to mention his ugly death. And he’d done it all with understanding and discretion. I’d trusted him with a lot, and he hadn’t disappointed that trust.

Maybe I did have a small crush-but it was harmless, the sort of thing that was bound to happen when you worked closely with someone who was interesting and attractive. It didn’t mean anything, really, and it didn’t change the fact that Jake had been nothing but kind from the moment we met. He was my friend, and I hoped he considered me his friend, too. He must, I thought, remembering his self-deprecating comments about his failed marriage-that wasn’t the sort of thing you shared with just anybody.

And just because I’d gone looking for trouble in my relationship with Peter didn’t mean I should go looking for trouble in every other relationship I had.

I picked up the phone again and dialed his extension but his assistant answered. “He’s on the other line,” she told me. “I’ll have him get back to you.” I probably was being paranoid, but I thought I could detect an iciness in her tone that had never been there before.

Frustrated, I tried to come up with someone else to call, but I was fresh out of names. Desperate for distraction, I began scrolling through my e-mails and even flipped through the new analyses Mark Anders had dropped off for the Thunderbolt deal, but I couldn’t absorb a single word or number.