She was typing her story when she finally got ahold of Kary Munson, Tim Tebow’s agent. “Hey, Kary, I finally realized why you had one of your people feed Walt the rumor that Tim was being called back to the Patriots.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Black. That rumor didn’t come from me or my office—”

She rode right over him. “Turns out it wasn’t a very smart move on your part. You’ve got to know Tim is going to roast you when he finds out what you did, all in hopes of raising his price tag for the CFL, specifically, for the Toronto Argonauts, by floating the rumor that he was going back to the Patriots. I know from my own sources Tim is talking to them and he isn’t going to like this a bit; he might fire you for it.”

And here came the music to her ears. “No, he won’t! I mean, it wasn’t even my idea—” Long pause, then Munson’s voice fell off the cliff. “Ah, damn, Perry. How’d you find out?”

“I spoke to Damien Cox with the Toronto Star. He knows everything that’s going on in Canadian football, plus I figured you wouldn’t shop Tim to any but the biggest team in the CFL, and that’s the Toronto Argonauts. How many Grey Cup championship victories do they have now?”

“Fifteen.”

“To make sure, I called one of the assistant coaches up there and he didn’t deny it. Hang it up, Kary, I called to tell you I’m putting the truth on my blog in seven minutes, and there’ll be a lovely headline in tomorrow’s Sports section in the Post. Fair warning.”

She grinned as she hung up.

She handed her story in to Bennett five minutes later. “Kary Munson’s going to be in deep caca,” she said, and she told him what she’d found out.

“So it all boiled down to Munson wanting to soak the Toronto Argonauts for more money?”

She shrugged. “Looks like.”

“Okay, then, we’re good.” He nodded up at the TV screen on the wall in his office. “It was reported again about two minutes ago on ESPN as a rumor that’s ‘flying around’ the league. You know how that works, the more it’s repeated and speculated on, the better the chance of it coming true. Morons.” He took a minute to clean up her copy, then said, “Get this up on the Internet immediately. Get it on Twitter. Get it on Facebook. It’ll go viral in three minutes.”

She raced to the door of his office.

“Perry? I know this deal going on with your mother makes it tough for you to concentrate. You did a good job with this, in spite of that.”

•   •   •

When she got home to change for the A-list party at the secretary of state’s incredible antiques-filled Federal-style home on Caldicott Road, she was feeling pretty good, except for the greasy slick of fear always there deep inside, for her mother.

She wondered if Tebow and the Toronto Argonauts would close a deal. Damien Cox said Tebow was as big a deal in Canada as he was in the United States. She hoped it would work out for him. She remembered one sportswriter on the football channel say that if he was a coach he’d want Tebow to marry his daughter, not play on his team. Ah, well, fans who continued to root for Tebow would have something to follow. At least she’d set things straight.

She wondered if Tebow would ever have the chance to be the Seabiscuit of the NFL.

Criminal Apprehension Unit
Hoover Building

Tuesday afternoon

Ishould have told Dillon over tacos at lunch. But she hadn’t. A moment of honesty. Sherlock hadn’t told him because he wouldn’t have let her go to the women’s room without an escort, so she’d kept quiet, but only until after she took her stalwart Volvo in to get serviced. Tonight, she’d tell him after they’d gotten Sean down, when the house was settling around them, when it would be quiet and there would be time to talk. She pulled out of the Hoover Building’s garage, managed with little finger waves and big pleading smiles to squeeze herself between an SUV and a tiny Fiat. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and government employees were pouring out of buildings like a tide. Cars gridlocked the streets, people were thick on the sidewalks and at the crosswalks. The temperature had plummeted again. It was so cold she could see her breath.

Sherlock turned up the heater and drove to Georgetown, to her service station on Prospect Street. She left her baby with Honest Bob, the owner she now trusted since he knew she carried a gun. She stepped off the sidewalk to flag down a taxi even though she wasn’t more than a quarter-mile from home, and she’d walked it before. She was more worried than she’d realized, more than she’d let on to herself. But there were no taxis to be had, and after five minutes, she gave up. She didn’t want to walk home in the dark. She pulled her small Lady Colt from her ankle holster and slipped it inside her coat pocket. She felt stupid, particularly since her new-issue Glock was clipped to her belt. You’re still healing from that gunshot wound. It makes sense you’re still paranoid, picturing a rifle sighting in on you, and blah, blah, blah. She was being ridiculous. She was in the middle of Georgetown, the streets crowded with people huddled in their coats, heads down, all moving fast. No one was looking at her, no one was stalking her, no one was out to kill her. It was here and now, not San Francisco three weeks ago.