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says. “She asked me to leave a little early and come over; both my parents wanted me to be here for your visit. I hope you don’t mind.”
    “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