More Twisted

pile of rubble. A police dog was in the foreground, sniffing at a gaping hole in the ground. A grim-faced couple stood nearby; they were identified as the parents of the trapped girl, Tonya Gilbert. Another photo was the girl’s high school yearbook picture. Ron scanned the article and learned some things about Tonya. She’d just started her senior year at City College, after spending the summer as a hiking guide at a state park on the Appalachian Trail. She was a public health major. Her father was a businessman, her mother a volunteer for a number of local charities. Tonya was an only child.
    Ron tapped a sidebar article. “Hey, look at that.” PARENTS OFFER $500K REWARD FOR GIRL’S RESCUE read this headline.
    A half million? he thought. Then he recalled the girl’s last name sounded familiar. Her father was probably the same Gilbert who owned a big financial analysis and investment bank in the city and was always appearing in the press at charity auctions and cultural benefits.
    Sandra asked the detective, “How can we help?”
    Perillo said, “Our rescue teams tried to get to her from the surface but it’s too dangerous. The rest of the building could collapse at any minute. The city engineers’d like to try to get to her through the basement of your office.”
    Sandra shook her head. “But how will that help? It’s nowhere near the old building.”
    “Our people looked over old maps of buildings that used to be in the area. There’re some basements under the parking lot between your building and the collapsed one that we think haven’t been filled in. We’re hoping somebody can work their way to the girl from underground.”
    “Oh, sure, of course,” Ron said. “Whatever we can do.”
    “Thanks much, sir.”
    “I’ll come down right away and let you in. Just give us a few minutes to throw on some clothes.”
    “You can follow me.” The detective gestured toward his dark blue unmarked police car.
    Ron and Sandra hurried back into the house, his wife whispering, “That poor girl . . . . Let’s hurry.”
    In the bedroom, Ron tossed his robe and pajamas onto the floor, while Sandra stepped into her dressing room to change. As he pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, Ron clicked on the local TV station. A news crew was at the scene, and a reporter was telling the anchorman that another portion of the wall had just collapsed, but the debris had missed Tonya. She was still alive.
    Thank God for that, Ron thought. He slipped on his jacket, staring at the TV screen. The camera panned to two young women standing at the police line. One wiped tears while the other held up a sign. It read: WeYou, Tunnel Girl.

    RB Graphic Design was in an old coffee warehouse, a small one, near the river and across the street from City College.
    Two years ago a dozen developers had decided to turn around this former industrial district of the city andconvert it to lofts, chic restaurants, theaters and artsy professional quarters—the way a lot of towns seemed to be doing lately, in more or less desperate attempts to reverse the trend of flight to the homogenous mall-land of the ’burbs.
    The real estate companies sunk big bucks into renovation and new construction in the eight-square-block area, while the city itself agreed to some tax breaks to get people and companies to move in and paid for some cheap street sculpture, signage and a public relations firm, which came up with a name for the district: “NeDo,” for “New Downtown.” This term had already been printed up on street signs and in promotional materials when it was discovered that people weren’t pronouncing it “Nue-Dow,” as planned, but “Nee-Due,” which sounded pretty lame, like a hair spray or soft drink. But by then the name had stuck. Despite the awkward name and some other bad planning (such as forgetting that those going to chic restaurants, theaters and jobs in artsy offices might want to park their cars someplace), the development caught on. Ron Badgett, for one, knew immediately that he wanted to move his company into the area and was particularly taken by the former coffee warehouse. He couldn’t explain it, he told Sandra, but he knew instinctively that it suited his personality perfectly.
    Ron was also ready to move from his original office. He felt he’d exhausted the benefits of the old place, which was in the traditional city center, a boring neighborhood of 1950s office buildings, the bus station and a recently defunct