“Not a bit,” I assure her.

“I want to mention something to you,” she says, folding her arms at her waist, “before we go inside.”

“Meredith, you’ll catch your death of pneumonia! Why in the world won’t you girls wear coats?” It’s Michelle—thirty-five years from now. She’s in the doorway, frantically waving at both of us, telling us to come in from the cold.

“This is my mother,” Meredith says as we enter. “Catherine.”

I shake Catherine’s hand, then look back at her elder daughter. I want her to hold on to that before we go inside thought she wanted to mention. She nods at me; she will. She takes my parka when we enter the foyer and motions for me to follow her mother, who’s already into the next room. “Warren,” Catherine says, “Mrs. Nickerson is here. The lawyer who called earlier.”

Warren is on his feet when I enter the living room, in front of a brown leather recliner, his cardigan unbuttoned and his pipe unlit. He turns my way and I realize he’s the source of Meredith’s slightly mismatched eyes. He looks older than his sixty years; no doubt he’s aged a decade in the past few days. His handshake is firm, his lined face exhausted. I’ve seen this haunted look before—more than a few times—but I’ll never get used to it.

“Call me Marty,” I tell him.

“Marty it is,” he says. His words are flat, without inflection. He points the stem of his pipe at a small sofa. “Please,” he says, “have a seat.”

“Can I get you anything?” Catherine asks. “A cup of tea, maybe?”

I shake my head as I settle on one end of the sofa, next to the welcome warmth of a crackling fire. The last thing Catherine Forrester needs foisted on her now is hostess duty. “Thank you, but no,” I tell her. “I’ll only stay a few minutes; I won’t take too much of your time.”

Warren lets out a halfhearted laugh. “Time,” he says, still cradling the bowl of his pipe. “We’ve got plenty of that.”

Meredith crosses the room and sits beside me while her mother claims the chair next to Warren’s, a smaller, upholstered version of his. Their side-by-side recliners haven’t been new in a long time, but they’ve aged gracefully.

“Catherine tried to explain,” Warren says, his brow knitting, “but I’m still not clear. What is your role in this…situation?” He looks down at his pipe, as if the answer might be tamped inside its bowl.

“I represent Senator Kendrick,” I tell him.

“Why?” he says.

Fair question. “Because the authorities have been talking with him. And that’s entirely appropriate; they should. But anyone being interrogated in a serious investigation is well advised to be represented by counsel.”

He nods, but the furrows in his forehead deepen. My explanation doesn’t make sense to him, but he’s too polite to say so. “We watched the Senator’s press conference yesterday,” he says instead. “We appreciate everything he’s doing. Tell him that for us, will you?”

A guilt spasm seizes my stomach. Just a few hours ago, I put the kibosh on any future press conferences; I don’t mention that, though. “I will,” I assure the weary Warren Forrester. “I’ll tell him.”

“That number,” Catherine says, “that eight-hundred number Senator Kendrick gave out, I think that’s going to help; I think it will make a real difference. Someone is bound to call in, someone who’s seen Michelle.”

Catherine’s voice cracks when she says her younger daughter’s name, but she nods emphatically at each of us, dry-eyed. She means what she just said; she believes it. Hope is a relentless emotion.

“Is it possible,” I ask, “that Michelle simply needed some time away? Felt overwhelmed by the pressures of her high-profile job and decided to escape for a while?”

No doubt they’ve been asked this question—or some version of it—a hundred times. But I have to ask it too; there’s no other way I’ll hear their answer. The cops aren’t in the habit of sharing their files with me. Our District Attorney isn’t, either.

“No,” Warren says. “That’s not possible.” Catherine shakes her head. Meredith does too.

“What about college friends?” I ask. “Might she have gone to stay with an old UVA buddy?”

All three shake their heads now. “My parents are sick with worry,” Meredith says quietly. “Michelle would never do that to them. Never.”

“She wouldn’t,” Catherine concurs. “That’s why we’re thinking she may have had an accident. That fancy car of hers is so tiny. And she’s always had a lead foot. She could be in a hospital—unidentified—anywhere between here and Hyannis.”

She’s not, of course. The Massachusetts and Connecticut authorities would have covered that base on day one. I don’t say so, though. I don’t intend to yank that straw, or any other, from the Forresters’ collective grasp. I change the subject instead. “Is there a boyfriend?”

Catherine shakes her head yet again and actually smiles a little. “Boys,” she says. “Michelle always has plenty of boys around.”

Warren nods in agreement, leans back in his chair, and closes his eyes.

Catherine points toward the kitchen. “Most days that phone rarely rings,” she says. “But when Michelle’s home—whether for a weekend or a week—it doesn’t stop.”

“But no one in particular?” I ask. “No one steady?”

“No,” Catherine says. “Not that we know of.”

Warren nods again, his eyes still closed, and it occurs to me that I’m wearing out my welcome; these people were spent long before I showed up. And besides, I’m hoping Meredith will walk out with me; I’m eager to hear whatever it was she wanted to say earlier.

I stand, take two business cards from my jacket pocket, and hand one to Meredith, the other to her mother. “I won’t keep you any longer. But please call if you think of anything—anything at all—we might have overlooked. Senator Kendrick will do everything he can to help.”

Warren’s eyes open at the mention of the Senator’s name. “Don’t forget to thank him for us,” he says as he stands.

“I won’t,” I assure him.

Meredith gets to her feet as I say my good-byes to her parents. “I’ll see you out,” she says as she walks toward the kitchen ahead of me.

“Wear a coat,” Catherine calls after us.

Meredith is quiet as she hands me my parka and then dutifully dons her heavy black overcoat. We exit into the late afternoon cold and she pauses on the porch, at the top of the steps. “There is something else,” she says. “It’s what I wanted to tell you when you first got here. I don’t think it matters, really, but since you’re the Senator’s attorney, I guess it’s okay to mention it to you. Maybe you already know.”

I stop one step below her and shrug, hoping to give the impression that I probably do already know. But I’m pretty sure I don’t.

“My sister is in love with Charles Kendrick,” she says, fingering her top button. “And I believe he loves her, too.”

This news isn’t exactly a shock. Honey’s performance this morning gave me a pretty good push in that direction. Still, I’m grateful to have my hunch confirmed. Maybe that’s why I came here in the first place.

“They had an affair,” Meredith continues. “They started seeing each other—secretly—after she’d worked for him a couple of years. He ended it four months ago, when his wife found out.”

I nod.

“Michelle was distraught,” she says. “I went to D.C. and spent a few days with her right after it all fell apart. She was devastated, couldn’t even go into the office that week.”

I nod again, thinking I need to have yet another heart-to-heart with my not-so-candid client.

“I know it sounds tawdry,” Meredith says as she starts down the steps, “but it wasn’t. I only saw them together a few times, but there was no denying they had genuine feelings for each other. The air between them was electric.”

I study Meredith for a moment, wondering if she’s angry with the Senator for hurting her little sister. If she is, it doesn’t show. I decide not to ask. “Do your parents know?” I say instead.