“I messed up,” Sam Levering said. “Oh, boy, did I.”

“Just tell me,” Anne Deveraux said.

Levering popped another aspirin into his mouth. Anne was everything to him – legal counsel, advisor, and spokesperson. She was also the sharpest politico on Capitol Hill. He depended on her for his every move, from schedules to meals to troubleshooting statements drafted on the fly.

This time she’d have to come up with a strategy, and it would have to be a masterpiece. He would need to break it to her a step at a time.

“I had a date last night,” Levering said.

“Not exactly news,” Anne said. She was the only one he would allow to talk to him that way. Part of it was pure sexual power. With her flowing raven hair, her form-fitting red suit, and her impeccable makeup, Anne Deveraux could, as the saying went, make a bishop kick out a stained-glass window. The one and only time Levering had made a move on her, however, she had frozen him out with an icy glare. Anne made it clear to him that she was all business.

“This wasn’t an ordinary date,” Levering said, clearing his throat. “It was with Millicent Mannings Hollander.”

Anne threw her head back, the way she did when signaling overdrive in disaster-handling mode. “Tell me that’s not true.”

“Unfortunately, it is.”

Anne began to pace in front of the oil painting near Levering’s office door, the one of Gordon McRae as Curly in Oklahoma! It had been the gift of a wealthy donor.

“So you are telling me you were with Justice Hollander last night, and that she is about to die this morning? Have you seen the Post Web site yet?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s all over the place. And the big question is what was she doing alone, in an evening gown, in the middle of a Washington, D.C., park? And you’re saying there are only two people with the answer?”

“Three.”

Anne thought a moment. “You had the limo?”

“Sylvan won’t talk.”

“What about her friends? Did she tell anybody she was going out with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we better find out. Anybody see you pick her up?”

Levering shrugged.

Anne stopped for a moment and fished a cigarette from her pocket. She put it in her mouth and “smoked” it, though it remained unlit. Levering had seen her do this many times before. It was the ritual of a supreme spin doctor.

“All right,” Anne said. “Detail me.”

“I was going to take her to dinner,” Levering said, longing for a drink but deciding he better not until this meeting was over. “Then I thought we’d ride around a little. Have a couple of drinks.”

“Does she drink?”

“Not much.”

“Did she have anything to drink?”

“Some champagne. Why?”

“That may come in handy. Keep going.”

Levering rubbed his temples. With his eyes closed he continued. “So I’d already had a snort before picking her up. Believe it or not, I was a little nervous.”

“Why shouldn’t I believe it?” Anne said. There was a challenging tone in her voice that Levering ignored.

“So I drank a little more with her, we talked. She was uptight. And, I don’t know, I got forward with her, I guess.”

Anne dragged deeply on the unlit cigarette, then put her hand on her hip. “Keep going.”

“Do I have to?”

“You want me to help you?”

“Fine. I kissed her on the neck.”

Anne Deveraux threw her head back again, looked at the ceiling, and did a complete turn in the middle of the office. When she finished, she said, “You’re telling me you tried to score with a justice of the United States Supreme Court? On the first date? Before you even got out of the car?”

Smiling sheepishly, Levering said, “That’s about it.”

“What were you thinking?” Anne said.

“You know me.”

“I can understand it with the others. Interns, yes. Socialite widows, fine. But Millicent Mannings Hollander?”

“I don’t know why I wanted her.” He paused, pondering his reasons. He had not grown up with very much attention from girls. He had always felt shy and self-conscious – all the way through college. Even when he got married he considered it a lucky blunder. But when he won his first public office in the state legislature, he found that power held a certain attracting force. Women began to gravitate toward him. He was always careful about it. He’d never had a scandal during his married years. Even after the divorce he kept things as discrete as possible. He’d had his pick of women. So why Millie?

“Let me answer for you,” Anne said. “She’s Jaws.”

Levering tilted his head at her.

“You know,” Anne said. “Jaws. The shark. The big one. She was the big one. You wanted to land her.”

Levering, with reluctance, nodded. “Maybe.”

“Millicent Mannings Hollander is the most famous virgin in the country. Everybody knows she never got married and doesn’t date. But you thought you’d be Mr. Excitement for the great score, didn’t you?”

“Fine. Guilty.”

“Good. Confession’s good for the soul.”

“I don’t believe in souls.”

“Then it’s good for your digestion, okay? Now let me do what I do.”

Levering sighed, glad to be back on familiar ground. Admissions always made him nervous. “What’s the first step?”

“I’ll go down and figure out what her status is. I’ve got to see if I can get to her before she talks to anybody.”

“Can you swing that?”

Anne took a drag on her unlit cigarette and smiled. “Who’s your Huckleberry?”

Millie opened her mouth and finally a sound came out.

“Help. Oh, please help.” She heard her voice as if it came from outside of herself, a frightened whisper.

Light invaded darkness. She opened her eyes. A foglike veil shrouded the room.

She felt as if she were being pulled through that veil, pulled like dead weight toward consciousness. Her body fought against it, shrieking to go back to sleep.

Her eyelids were like bags full of rocks. But she knew with a certainty bordering on hysteria that she could not go back to sleep. If she did, they would have her. The ones she had felt in the darkness.

Circles of fear rippled outward from her stomach. She had to fight to stay awake.

“Help…”

Something at the back of her head. A throbbing, painful thing, reaching around to her temples like burning tongs.

Did they have her in a torture chamber?

Sight of curtains, smell of linen and disinfectant. Sounds of voices outside the room, beeping noises, the soft whirring of machines.

She was not dead. She was in a hospital room.

The realization came to her, and with it a wave of such sweet relief that she almost wept.

Come back, she told herself as her eyelids pressed downward. Don’t sleep!

A nurse – Millie assumed it was a nurse, hoped it was – floated in through the mists.

“… feeling?” the nurse said.

Millie heard herself groan.

“How are you feeling?” the nurse repeated.

“Help.”

“Are you in pain?”

Was she in pain? No, it was beyond pain, as if she were awakening into a thick, burning substance. She felt things attached to her body.

“Help,” Millie said.

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Millie wanted to shout Don’t leave me, as if this nurse represented the last lifeline. But the nurse was gone.

She was alone. Would she die? The word again popped into her mind. Why should she think that? Her mind slogged forward, barely, frustrating her. She knew who she was, that her mind was a sharp one, well oiled, trained. Or had she suffered some sort of damage?

What was happening?

She did not have any idea of time. The next span could have been minutes or hours. But she fought to stay awake. Sharp pains helped her. She became aware of a monitor next to the bed, issuing peak and valley lines. Her heartbeat. She still had a beating heart.