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cared about her. He actually loved her.
    Of course, he knew he was a dead man if Billy Joe Collier and the rest of his brothers in the South Carolina Realm found out. The image of Lincoln Jefferson’s lifeless body dangling from a tree flashed through Earl Smith’s mind as he kissed Cat Wilson good-bye.

CHAPTER 13
     
     
    Kelsi Shelton tucked her hair behind her ears so that she could see what she was doing. She owned only two business suits, and she couldn’t afford to spill coffee on either of them. The dry cleaning bill alone would put a serious dent in her already paltry bank account. Law school research assistants might be future lawyers, but they were paid like grocery store clerks.
    Kelsi removed the carafe from the four-cup coffeemaker that came with the room and filled two plastic cups with steaming joe. She added a packet of Carnation Non-Dairy Creamer to one of them and then carried both cups to the small wooden table near the window at which Peter McDonald was working.
    “Sorry they only had the chalky stuff,” she said as she placed the cup with the artificial creamer in front of her favorite professor. “I guess the budget cuts are affecting everything.”
    McDonald chuckled at Kelsi’s remark. “I don’t think it’s that,” he said. “I think the Republicans are trying to send me a message: stay in academia, Professor; the coffee’s better there.”
    Kelsi chuckled this time.
    McDonald motioned for her to take the seat across from him. “How do you think it went today?” He stirred his coffee with the top half of a plastic hotel pen.
    Kelsi sat. “I think it went really well.” She took a sip of her coffee. She liked hers black. “You certainly showed that you know a lot about the law and that you’re not an ideologue.”
    McDonald said, “Thanks.”
    Kelsi said, “That wasn’t the best part, though. You know what was?”
    “What?”
    “What you said at the end about Senator Burton. Her face got so red that I thought she was having a heart attack.”
    McDonald smiled. “I know. I probably shouldn’t have said it, but I couldn’t help myself. Shoot, I’d bet the farm that Burton’s staff wrote the questions that Senator Carpenter was asking.”
    “That would be a good bet.” Kelsi glanced at the notepad in front of her professor. “Do you need any help with that?”
    McDonald was working on his closing statement. Given how tight the vote on his confirmation was likely going to be, he had been spending even more time on it than he otherwise might have spent.
    Peter McDonald had always been one of those last-minute wonders—someone who could wait until the deadline to get started and then manage to produce a work product that was better than that of anyone else. His law school classmates used to tease him about it. His law faculty colleagues resented him for it.
    He said to Kelsi, “Aren’t you missing too many classes as it is? I feel guilty about that, you know.”
    “Don’t. I’ve learned more about the law in the two and a half days we’ve been here than I’ve learned in two and a half years of law school.” Kelsi blushed and then said, “Except in your class, of course.”
    “Good save, kiddo.” McDonald smiled. He seemed to be smiling a lot lately, and it always seemed to be when Kelsi Shelton was around. “Then maybe I could read my closing statement to you when I’ve finished with it, and you can tell me what you think.”
    “I’d love that,” Kelsi said. She glanced out the window and wondered what it meant.

CHAPTER 14
     
     
    Jeffrey Oates decided to walk to the Hilton Hotel. Traffic in the nation’s capital was almost always a nightmare, and he didn’t want to get caught up in a high-speed chase with the D.C. metro police in the middle of DuPont Circle. Evading local cops through the back roads of rural Virginia had been difficult enough. He wasn’t a cat. He didn’t have nine lives. After failing to take out Peter McDonald in Charlottesville,