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sometimes what a dog you were before you got married,” Tess said.
    “I was a single man. I dated. Not a lot of hard feelings out there on either end, but if you want to call that being a dog, so be it. I knew Melisandre when she was in her twenties, before she married Stephen. I was there when they met. That’s why she called me—and that’s why you landed a pretty lucrative gig. So— you’re welcome .”
    “Then I guess I’ll enjoy myself, too.” She started to reach for a chocolate croissant, only to catch the look on Tyner’s face. “What? Are we not allowed to touch the food until Lady Bountiful arrives? You didn’t give Sandy a dirty look when he had a cruller.”
    Tyner’s pause gave her pause. “Are you in training?”
    “It’s been a little cold to be out on the water,” Tess said, knowing she wasn’t answering the question.
    “But you’ve been erging over the winter, I assume?”
    “I don’t compete, so I don’t need to erg in the off-season. I row for my own pleasure.”
    “There’s a word for self-pleasure, and it isn’t very nice.”
    “Who says?” Tess countered. “At least masturbation is always consensual.”
    Tyner let the subject drop, and that was more disturbing than anything he had said or implied. Tyner would normally have no problem telling Tess that she was going soft, literally and figuratively. And while Tess had never been one to worry about the numbers on the scale, which were more or less—okay, more—where they had always been, there was a slackness to her body these days. Still, ifTyner wanted to tell her how to find time to get on the water when she had to be on kid duty five mornings a week, she’d love to hear it. She could find forty minutes to head out for a run, maybe put in an hour at the gym at lunchtime. But rowing was time-intensive, once you counted up the drive to the boathouse, getting her shell out and on the water, cleaning and storing it properly at the end of a workout. And it could be done only in the daylight hours. Tess had never known how short a day was until she had a child. The old saying was that the days were long and the years short when raising a child. But the hours she had to herself certainly zipped by.
    Maybe some fruit for breakfast was all she needed. Go figure; there was a selection of fruit, too, and even a box of tea set out. With sugar cubes. Sugar cubes! White and brown.
    “So where is the guest of honor?”
    “Running late,” Tyner said. “There were photographers outside her hotel this morning.”
    “And she had to figure out a way to get out without being seen?”
    “No, she waded right into them, as I understand it.”
    “With camera crew following. Well, that creates a scene for the documentary, right? Melisandre Dawes—does she still go by Dawes?—besieged by the paparazzi. Probably called them on herself.”
    “She’s using Melisandre Harris Dawes. And she’s not like that, Tess.”
    “No, she’s just a very rich lady who has decided that her life’s mission is to educate people about criminal insanity by thrusting herself back into public view after a decade abroad. Toward that end she has hired a film crew to make a documentary about her, even though her case couldn’t be more anomalous. Why not focus on the women without money who didn’t get the help they needed? By the way—you did tell her that I’m not going to allow her to film this meeting, right?”
    “Technically, as her lawyer, that’s my call—”
    “No, it’s not, Tyner. I’m not going to consent to be filmed for this, and if that’s part of the package, she can take her big hourly fee and stuff it up—”
    The announcement, over the intercom, that their client had arrived, kept Tess from completing her directions. Tyner had barely said, “Send her in,” when Melisandre Harris Dawes strode through the door.
    And strode—strided? Tess’s inner grammarian queried—was really the only word. Melisandre walked with her head up,