Sherlock said, “Do you know, the three of them have one thing in common. They all radiate clout. Look, there’s the senator from New Hampshire going over to them.”

“They’re a big deal,” Rachael said. “They’re American royalty, rich—oozing confidence, used to getting what they want.”

Savich said to his wife as he touched his fingertips to her ear, “I really like the jet-black earrings.”

“You should, you bought them for me.”

He could feel the tightly coiled energy rolling off her. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I did.”

Sherlock said to Rachael, “You look perfect. You’ve struck the right note—classic outfit with a hint of pizzazz.”

She did indeed, Jack thought. Rachael was wearing a long black gown, as were many woman in the room. Unlike them, Rachael wasn’t showing very much skin, but what showed was potent. She looked beautiful and pale and dignified. Jack imagined she was wound tighter than his grandfather’s watch, a ritual Jack had watched countless times when he was a little kid.

Champagne flowed along with the stronger stuff. He saw Laurel and Stefanos speaking with the vice president. As each of them spoke, the vice president nodded solemnly. Several times, he leaned in to say something.

Savich spotted Greg Nichols entering the room, three women and two men with him, former Abbott staffers all. He was wearing a tux, and should have looked buff and competent, but he didn’t. Something was wrong, something was off with him. He was moving slowly and awkwardly. Nichols looked up and met Savich’s eyes across the room. He caught Jack’s eye and nodded slowly. Then, strangely, he rubbed his belly. What was going on?

Greg Nichols felt sick to his stomach. He thumbed another Tums from the bottle and discreetly slipped it into his mouth. How many was that so far? Six? Seven? He hoped it was nerves. Nerves he could deal with, he’d had a lot of practice. No, he was going to have to face it, this was for real, probably the cioppino he’d had for a late lunch—a mistake, his secretary Lindsay had told him, what with the hullabaloo happening tonight with the movers and shakers, and he with his nervous stomach. All right, so the cioppino had been off, he’d known it after a few bites and stopped eating it. Curse Lindsay, she was right.

He’d already had massive diarrhea and vomited twice. He thought there’d been a bit of blood, prayed he was mistaken, because that was scary.

But maybe he was feeling a little better now. No, he felt like crap. For a moment, he watched the FBI agent Dillon Savich, the one who’d led the FBI press conference, and chewed faster on the Tums. And that damned agent Jack Crowne, who was sticking to Rachael like glue. Nichols knew he’d been checking on him, and if he didn’t know everything about him already, he would soon enough. He’d know everything about all of them. It wasn’t fair, just wasn’t.

He looked around at the sea of powerful people, spouses hanging onto senators’ arms, staking claim to power. So much power concentrated in this one room—it was a terrorist’s wet dream. He easily spotted Secret Service agents from long practice. They were everywhere. There had to be FBI there, as well; they were better at fading into the woodwork.

He realized he no longer cared if Rachael spoke out or not. He was a lawyer, he knew how things worked. He’d roll over on Senator Abbott, no problem with that, since he was dead. Then he’d take the bar exam, and set up his practice in Boise.

He didn’t need this aggravation that was going to escalate into a shit storm. It was time to cut his losses. It was time to get out of Dodge.

He saw Laurel Kostas speaking to the ancient senator from Kansas, and at her elbow, nodding occasionally at something his sister said, stood Quincy, that good-for-nothing whiner the senator had tolerated only because he’d felt sorry for him.

His stomach was roiling, but the cramps had lessened a bit. He nabbed a glass of carbonated water from a waiter’s tray and sipped it. Maybe it would help settle his stomach, that’s what his mother had always preached. He saw his boss, Senator Jankel, all earnest, bending to eye another congressman’s wife, the old fool.

Dammit, he couldn’t think, his belly was on fire.

FIFTY-THREE

Savich saw a man out of the corner of his eye, a small man, dressed in a waiter’s uniform, duck behind a grouping of black-gowned women and tuxedoed men.

Savich moved quickly and, he hoped, discreetly. But he wasn’t as fast as Jack, who already had the man’s arm and was pulling him toward the kitchen.

Good. Jack would get it sorted out.

The evening rolled on. A distinguished man Savich recognized but couldn’t place, wearing a black bespoke tux that disguised his paunch, stepped onto the dais to stand behind the podium. He adjusted the microphone and greeted the guests, and announced dinner. Everyone migrated to their tables, and for three minutes Savich couldn’t see anyone clearly in the crowd. Ah, there was Director Mueller. He had Rachael’s arm and was leading her to a table at the front of the room where he sat on her right. Jack was to be seated on her left, only he wasn’t there.

What was happening in the kitchen?

Savich was at the point of heading back there when Jack came through the swinging dark-paneled doors, straightening his tux as he made his way to his table. He spoke briefly to Director Mueller and eased in beside Rachael.

Savich and Sherlock stood for a moment by the doors to the large, dark-paneled nineteenth-century gentlemen’s club, which turned coed in the late fifties. Interesting how it still retained the original smell of countless cigars puffed inside its walls over the decades, sort of sweet and old, like lace in an antique trunk.

Savich sat at one of the front tables with Laurel, Quincy, and Stefanos, four couples separating them, Sherlock at one of the back tables with Greg Nichols. Jimmy Maitland, to cover all the bases, sat with Brady Cullifer.

Savich listened to the rock-hard political conversations going on around him and wondered when the rubber chicken would make its appearance. He wondered how they would rubberize his vegetarian dish.

To his surprise, he was served spinach lasagna, a tossed salad, and green beans dotted with pearl onions, all delicious. For the predators, they brought out what looked like a Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings.

A gentleman at the microphone announced that Thanksgiving was Senator Abbott’s favorite meal of the year. There was appreciative laughter. And more laughter when he announced there would be gelato for dessert, because pear tart-lets prepared for more than two hundred people never made it to the table tasting quite like fruit.