“True. But the movement in the stock does suggest that someone’s buying, and it would be good to know who and what his intentions are. One of the reasons I’m here is that I wanted to see if you had any sense of what Barbara Barnett might do with her shares.”

Helene sniffed. “Who knows what that idiot might do.”

“Helene!” said her husband, but he laughed. He clearly shared his wife’s opinion.

“Well, she is an idiot, Edward. Miss Texas of all things. I have no idea what Tom saw in her.” The way she said “Miss Texas ” made Helene’s feelings on the subject clear. “And that creepy boy of hers. He gives me the willies.”

Edward laughed again. “Adam is a strange one,” he acknowledged.

“She’s such a stage mother-trying to maneuver that boy into the spotlight at every opportunity. And talk about pushy!” continued Helene. “That woman! She’s always trying to worm her way into things. She came right out and asked me to put her up for the Chilton Club. That’s not how these things are done. And she just wouldn’t fit in. This isn’t New York, you know. All of that plastic surgery and the ridiculous clothes. She’s very showy.”

“Still,” said Edward, “I don’t think you have to worry about Barbara needing to sell her shares. She’s very well situated. Tom left her quite comfortably off.”

“That’s good to know,” I said. “Although, Brian Mulcahey’s concerned, and I am, too, that if Barbara’s not selling, she may actually seek to become more involved in the company, which brings with it its own set of problems.” I related to them the highlights of my conversation with Mulcahey, which they reacted to with mild alarm, tempered by amusement.

Edward chortled. “Adam? As CEO? I think not!”

“You have no need to worry, dear,” said Helene. “Barbara will meet with some stiff opposition if she tries to foist her son upon the company in such a way. Edward and I will be sure of that.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“We know everyone on that board, and they’ll listen to reason,” added Edward.

“I’m actually supposed to go to the board meeting tomorrow. Brian Mulcahey asked me to sit in.”

“Excellent. It will be good to have another voice of reason in the room if Barbara does indeed intend to make such a preposterous proposal.”

A grandfather clock wheezed into action from the depths of the house, striking the half hour. Helene jumped up. “I hadn’t realized the time. Edward, we should leave now if we want to be at the hospital by ten. You know how hard it is to find parking.”

They offered me a ride to Harvard Square, and I accepted it, climbing into the back of their ancient Mercedes sedan. Twenty minutes later I was back at the hotel.

M y cell phone rang as I pushed through the revolving door into the hotel lobby. I managed to drop my bag and spill its contents as I was digging for the device, but I caught the call just before it could go into voice mail.

“Rachel Benjamin,” I answered, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder as I knelt to collect the items that had scattered on the rug.

“Rachel. It’s Jonathan Beasley.”

I’d somehow pushed all thoughts about Jonathan and the quasikiss incident aside for the past two hours, but the warm, deep timbre of his voice made the imaginary scarlet A begin pulsing on my forehead all over again. “Hi,” I said lamely. The phone promptly slipped off my shoulder and fell to the floor. “Drat.” I grabbed the phone back up, trying to politely wave away the bellman who’d come to my aid.

“You still there?” he was asking.

“Yes, sorry about that. Dropped the phone.” Just in case Jonathan hadn’t already realized I was a total klutz. I felt my cheeks turning red, the better to match my scarlet A.

“Slippery little devils, aren’t they.”

“Absolutely.”

“Anyhow, I wanted to thank you again for dinner last night. I had a great time.”

“No, I should be thanking you. It was fun to catch up on the last decade.” And sleazy of me to leave out salient facts. Like the one about my boyfriend. Assuming he was still my boyfriend instead of Abigail’s.

“We’ll have to do it again soon.” I was struggling to answer that when he continued, “but I’m actually calling on business.”

“Oh?” My refilled bag was back on my shoulder and, with the help of the persistent bellman, I’d returned to a standing position, brushing off the knees of my pantsuit with my free hand.

“I told the police what you told me about Grenthaler Media, and they would like to talk to you.”

“Sure. I can’t imagine that it will be of much help, but I’m happy to do it.”

“Well, between the two of us, I think some pressure’s being brought to bear from some important people, and the police want to be able to show they’re covering every base.” I wondered if the pressure was related to the calls Edward Porter had been making. I had the feeling he knew the home phone numbers of some very important people.

“Whatever I can do.”

“They’ve set up temporary operations in a conference room down the hall from my office. Could you come by this afternoon?”

I did some mental calculations. “I think so. Maybe a little after four?” The interviewing was scheduled to finish at one, followed by a final roundup session. With any luck, we’d be done by three. I could run up to UHS to see Sara and then head over to the business school. If all went well, I’d be back in plenty of time to clean up e-mail and voice mails before the cocktail party Winslow, Brown was hosting that evening.

“That should be fine. I’ll see you then.”

I got to the elevator without dropping anything else and even pushed the correct button for where I was going. I reached the Winslow, Brown suite just in time for Cecelia to pair me up with another banker and send me off to actually do some interviews. I was glad to squeeze a few in-at least I wasn’t completely neglecting my job.

We wrapped up the last set of interviews nearly on schedule, and my colleagues and I gathered in the suite for a buffet lunch and to complete the list of candidates to be asked to New York for the final round. The meeting went smoothly enough, probably because everybody was so impatient to be finished that they’d lost their appetite for debate. Scott Epson was unusually well-behaved, for once. Rather than nitpicking obscure line items on students’ résumés, he was silent for the most part and even excused himself a couple of times to take calls that seemed to be genuinely important. I wanted to ask him if he’d been at the Ritz that morning, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it without betraying that I’d been playing hooky from recruiting. Nor did I trust my eyesight sufficiently to think it really had been him with the Caped Avenger.

We finished before three, and Cecelia reminded us that we were expected to stick around for the cocktail party that evening. She met the chorus of groans with assurances that she’d have them all on the eight o’clock shuttle back to New York with plenty of time to spare. I thanked her yet again and hurried off to UHS, making a quick stop at a florist to pick up some flowers.

Sara looked much better this afternoon than she had the previous day. Her head was still wrapped up in white bandages, and there was a tube dripping clear liquid into her arm, but she was sitting up in bed and some color had returned to her face. Her friend Edie Michaels was with her, and they were in animated discussion when I arrived. Sara thanked me effusively for the flowers, which really didn’t merit such gratitude, especially when a quick glance around the room showed me that she was already well stocked on the floral front.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I should have brought magazines or something.”

“No, these are beautiful,” she assured me as I settled into one of the guest chairs. “Besides, I have plenty of reading material. Edie brought me all of my class work for next week.” She gestured to a pile on the bedside table and grimaced.