“How’d that happen?” Senator Kendrick and his wife have only one child. And everyone in the Commonwealth knows she’s following her father’s footsteps through the hallowed halls of Harvard. She’s a sophomore this year.

Luke shrugs. “Her roommate is dating a guy in my dorm,” he says. “And they finished with finals an entire week before we did. A week and a day,” he adds, as if the extra day is what really frosts him. “They finished last Thursday.” He shakes his head. “Last Thursday,” he repeats, certain Harry and I would be sobbing by now if we’d heard him the first time.

“Anyway, they came over to visit the night they finished and a bunch of us went out for Thai to celebrate, I guess. Course, the girls were the only ones who had anything to celebrate then. They went home after dinner; we went back to the dorm to study for more crummy exams. But Abby and I ended up sitting next to each other at the Thai place, and we got to talking. She’s staying in town with her folks—they have a summer place on Old Harbor Road—through the holidays. So I asked if she’d like to grab a bite sometime and she said sure.” He turns to Harry. “Can you believe it? She said sure.”

Harry kicks his shoes off and loosens his tie. “Life is good,” he tells Danny Boy, “whenever she says sure.”

“Hey, look at that,” Luke says. “There she is.”

For a split second, I think Abby must have come to our door. Luke’s eyes don’t move in that direction, though. He’s staring at the TV. And there she is.

Senator Kendrick is on-screen, flanked by his wife and daughter. His lips are moving, but it’s not his words we hear. Instead, a talking head in the upper right corner tells us the Senator held a press conference outside his Chatham home at four o’clock today. He repeated the detailed descriptions we’ve been hearing on the news all day—of Michelle Forrester, her electric-blue BMW roadster, and the clothes she was wearing when she was last seen four days ago. He pleaded for anyone with information about her—no matter how insignificant it might seem—to come forward. He also gave out a newly established 800 number for his D.C. office. His staff, he said, would gladly accept calls from persons not willing to contact the police directly.

So much for my keep your mouth shut admonition. Harry’s right. My newest client isn’t very good at following directions.

Luke zips up his parka, then walks closer to the TV screen and points at the Senator’s daughter. “Is she great,” he says, turning back to face Harry and me, “or what?”

My son is right. Abby Kendrick is tall and lean—athletic looking—with dark red hair, an alabaster complexion, and finely carved features like her father’s. She’s perfectly poised in front of the cameras. And she’s stunning.

Harry lets out a low whistle as he gets up from the couch and pulls two more twenties from his wallet. “Take her someplace better than decent,” he says, handing the folded bills to Luke. “And tell her to order the lobster.”

Chapter 5

Tuesday, December 14

A grown woman who voluntarily refers to herself as “Honey” is suspect in my book. The Senator’s wife has a perfectly serviceable given name—Nell—but she prefers her nectar nickname instead. When she attends her husband’s public appearances—campaign stops, fund-raisers, and press conferences—she insists that the members of the media address her by her self-imposed moniker. And now, in her state-of-the-art, sun-drenched kitchen, she demands the same of me. “Please, dear,” she says each time I speak to her, “call me Honey.” The result, of course, is that I’ve stopped calling her anything at all.

This is the first time I’ve met Mrs. Kendrick and I’m not surprised to find her ill at ease, uncomfortable in her own skin. That’s exactly how she always seems on television, no matter what the occasion. It took ten minutes to convince her that I really do take my coffee black, that I’m not refusing her repeated offers of cream and sugar out of some misguided sense of propriety. At this rate, the quick chat I’d planned to have with her and her husband this morning will take the rest of the calendar year.

The spacious, all-white kitchen is on the landward side of the house. A rectangular wrought-iron table and six matching, cushioned chairs are situated in an alcove a few feet from glass sliders. The Senator and I are settled across from each other, coffee mugs in hand, my beat-up briefcase on the slate floor beside my chair. We’ve been here fifteen minutes now, waiting for Honey to join us.

She’s an attractive woman, but I suspect she’s high-maintenance as well. She’s lean like her husband and daughter but not as tall as either of them, with a winter tan and short, salon-assisted amber hair. Honey-colored, I realize as I watch her from across the room. In tailored dark slacks, a powder blue cashmere sweater, and pumps, she looks like she thinks I came here this morning to take photos. It’s a good thing I didn’t; Honey seems constitutionally unable to stop moving. She flutters around the room, opening and closing drawers and cupboards; stacking and restacking newspapers and magazines on the counter; offering us coffee cake, fruit, and yogurt.

“Not for me,” I tell her a third time. Her husband says no again too, then stares through the sliders to the snow-covered yard and the neighboring bungalow. Mrs. Kendrick turns her back to us, roots through the supersize, stainless steel refrigerator, and delivers a fruit salad and three vanilla yogurts to the table anyway. “Honey,” the Senator says quietly, “please join us. Marty doesn’t have all day.”

He’s right about that. I’m supposed to meet Harry at the House of Correction at ten—an hour from now—and it’s a forty-minute drive from here. Today we’ll do our best to prepare Derrick Holliston for cross-examination. And though it’s impossible to know how cross will go for any client—or any witness, for that matter—with Holliston we know one thing for sure: it’ll get ugly.

Mrs. Kendrick nods at her husband’s request and wipes her hands on a terry-cloth towel. She doesn’t sit, though. She leans against one slider, wrings the red-checkered towel, and turns her attention to me. I’d better get to the point, I guess. She doesn’t look like she plans to stand still for long.

“You need to be quiet,” I tell them both.

“What?” the Senator says.

There’s no doubt in my mind that he heard me. He just can’t wrap his brain around the message. “About Michelle Forrester,” I add. “You need to zip it, publicly and privately. No more press conferences. No more media events of any kind. No more conversation about her, unless it’s with me.”

The Senator looks into his coffee mug for a moment. When his eyes meet mine again, they’re angry. “That’s impossible,” he says.

“Then you need to find a new attorney.”

He sets his mug down, hard. “Are you threatening me?”

“No,” I assure him. “But I am telling you I’m a defense lawyer, not a magician. I can’t protect your interests if you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” he says. “That young woman worked for me every day for the past three and a half years and she’s vanished without a trace. You expect me to stand by and say nothing?”

“That’s right. Until we get a handle on what’s happened here, that’s exactly what I expect.”

He looks into his mug again, silent for now. I turn to his wife. She shifts away from me, leans sideways, the towel still taut between her clenched hands. Her shoulder presses against the glass and her gaze settles on the shingled bungalow next door. “And I expect it from both of you,” I tell her.