My dad had taken the photo. It was dead center north wall. On the left side of it is his certificate for being a Pulitzer finalist for the Feature Photography category, which even he, to his credit, admits is kind of ridiculous. On the right side is his Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to him a couple of years back for his work with Haden’s. Underneath that is the picture of him having the medal placed around his neck by President Gilchrist, and bending down, laughing, so the famously short Gilchrist could manage it.

Three months later Willard Hill was elected president. President Hill signed Abrams-Kettering into law. President Hill was not thought well of in the Shane household.

I’ve lived with the trophy room all my life so I never thought there was anything particularly special about it. It was just another room in the house and a boring one at that, since I wasn’t allowed to play in it. And I know Dad is pretty blasé about awards at this point. Short of a Nobel Peace Prize, he’s pretty much run the table. Outside of humoring visitors or hosting events, I’ve never seen him step foot into the trophy room. He doesn’t even put things in there—he leaves that to Mom.

But then, the trophy room isn’t for us. It’s for everyone else. My father deals with millionaires and billionaires on a daily basis, the sort of people who have egos just this side (and sometimes way over the edge) of sociopathy. The sort of person who thinks he’s the apex predator wading through a universe of sheep. Dad takes them into the trophy room and their eyes get to the size of dinner plates and they realize that whatever shit they’ve got going on is tiddlywinks compared to Dad. There are maybe three people in the world more interesting than Marcus Shane. They’re not one of them.

Which is why Mom, when she’s being indiscreet, refers to the trophy room as the “vet’s office.” Because that’s where Dad brings people to take their balls.

Into the vet’s office I walked, newly numb in the jaw, to see who tonight’s set of financial and testicular donors were. I saw Dad instantly, of course. He’s six foot eight. He’s hard to miss.

I was not prepared for the other person I saw, standing with Dad, looking up at him, smiling, drink in hand.

It was Nicholas Bell.

Chapter Seven

“CHRIS!” DAD SAID, and then suddenly he was looming over me, as he does, to grab me in a hug. “How you doing, kiddo.”

“Being crushed by you, Dad,” I said, and he laughed. This was a standard call-and-response for us.

“Thanks for coming in to meet people,” he said.

“We have to have a talk about that,” I said. “Sometime really soon.”

“I know, I know,” he said, but then waved Bell over anyway. Bell walked over, drink in hand, still smiling. “This is Lucas Hubbard, CEO and chairman of Accelerant Investments.”

“Hello, Chris,” Hubbard/Bell said, extending his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

I shook it. “And you,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m having a bit of déjà vu at the moment.”

Hubbard/Bell smiled. “I get that a lot,” he said. He sipped from the glass: scotch on the rocks.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just surprised.”

“So you know who Lucas is,” Dad said, watching our somewhat cryptic exchange.

“No, it’s not that,” I said. “I mean, yes. I know who Lucas Hubbard is, of course. But I also know…” I trailed off. It was considered rude to acknowledge that an integrated Haden was using someone else’s body.

“You know the Integrator I’m using,” Hubbard said, sparing me the faux pas.

“Yes, that’s it,” I said. “We’ve met before.”

“Socially?” Hubbard said.

“Professionally,” I said. “Briefly.”

“Interesting,” Hubbard said. A rather good-looking woman walked up and stood next to him. He motioned to her. “And this is Accelerant Investments’ general counsel, Samuel Schwartz.”

“We’ve met,” Schwartz said, looking directly at me.

“Have you, now,” Hubbard said.

“Also professionally,” I said. “Also briefly.”

“Indeed,” Schwartz said, and smiled. “I didn’t make the connection as to who you were at first when we met, Agent Shane. I had to look you up halfway through the conversation. I do apologize.”

“No apology needed,” I said. “I was out of context. Speaking of which, you are looking a bit different from when I last saw you, Mr. Schwartz. It’s an unexpected look.”

Schwartz glanced down at his body. “I suppose it is,” he said. “I know some Hadens who enjoy cross-gender integration, but I’m not usually one of them. But my usual Integrator was unavailable this evening and I was a last-minute addition to this party. So I had to work with who was available.”

“You could have done worse,” I assured him. He smiled again.

“I don’t know how I feel about you knowing these two better than I do,” Dad said, charmingly, smoothly.

“I find it a little surprising myself,” I said.

“As do I,” Hubbard said. “It doesn’t seem possible that your father and I haven’t crossed paths before, all things considered. But then, aside from our various offices, Accelerant Investments doesn’t do much in the field of real estate.”

“Why is that, Lucas?” Dad asked.

“As a Haden, I’m less engaged with the physical world, I suppose,” Hubbard said. “It’s just not front of mind for me.” He motioned at Dad with his scotch. “I don’t think you mind me not competing in your field.”

“No,” Dad said. “Although I don’t mind competition.”

“That’s because you’re very good at beating the competition,” Hubbard said.

Dad laughed. “I suppose that’s true,” he said.

“Of course it is,” Hubbard said, and then looked at me, smiling. “It’s something the two of us have in common.”

*   *   *

As we sat down at the table for dinner I called Vann, using my inside voice so no one at the table would know my attention was elsewhere.

Vann picked up. “I’m busy,” she said. I could barely hear her over the background noise.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m in a bar, having a drink and trying to get laid,” she said. “Which means I’m busy.”

“I know that Lucas Hubbard uses Nicholas Bell as an Integrator.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Hubbard is sitting across from me at the dinner table right now, using Bell.”

“Well, shit,” Vann said. “That was easy.”

“What should I do?”

“You’re off the clock, Shane,” Vann said. “Do what you like.”

“I thought you might be a little more excited,” I said.

“When you see me tomorrow, on the job, I will be excited,” Vann promised. “Right now, I’m otherwise occupied.”

“Got it,” I said. “Sorry to bother you.”

“So am I,” Vann said. “But since you did I’ll tell you I’ve made progress on our corpse. The DNA came back.”

“Who is he?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“I thought you said you made progress,” I said.

“I did. The DNA analysis didn’t come up with anything but it determined that he’s probably of Navajo ancestry. Which might explain why we can’t find him in the database. If he’s Navajo and he lived on a reservation, then all his records would be on the reservation’s databases. They’re not automatically tied into the U.S. databases because the Navajo Nation is autonomous. And strangely distrustful of the United States government!” Vann fairly cackled that last line.

“How often does that happen?” I asked. “Even if you live on a reservation, if you ever leave it, you probably do something that gets you into our databases.”

“Maybe this guy never left,” Vann said. “Until he left.”

“Do we have a request in to them?” I asked. “The Navajo Nation, I mean.”

“Our forensics team does, yeah,” Vann said. “DNA, fingerprints, and facial scan. The Navajo will get to it when they get to it. They don’t always put a priority on our needs.”

Up at the head of the table, Dad started clanging on his wineglass, and then stood up.