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The entertainer was accompanied by a pretty auburn-haired woman in a smart business suit. One of the star’s escorts spoke into a tiny microphone at his wrist and J. D. overheard him alerting someone at ground level to have the car ready.
    The diva shook the hand of the auburn-haired woman and got into the elevator When the performer turned, she caught sight of J. D. She lowered her sunglasses for a better look and J. D. saw a canary-eating grin appear on her feline face just as the elevator doors closed.
    Then the auburn-haired woman was standing next to him and she, too, had a mischievous smile on her face.
    “Consider yourself flattered,” she told J. D. with a small dollop of the South in her voice.
    “There aren’t many who get a second look from Marva, much less a smile.” The woman extended her hand.
    “I’m Vandy Ellison. Is there anything I can do for you?”
    J. D. shook her hand.
    “J. D. Cade. If you’re with the senator’s campaign, I just stopped by to make a contribution. Perhaps you might point me in the right direction.”
    “I am the right direction,” she said, her smile brightening. She took J. D.‘s arm.
    “I’m Senator Rawley’s chief fundraiser for California, and I’d be de lighted to show you to my office.”
     
    She led him into the suite of offices. The rest of the campaign staff found J. D. far less compelling than the departed diva, and they were getting back to work. The only person paying attention to him and the honey-voiced Ms. Ellison was a broad-shouldered man with short, wiry black hair, brooding dark eyes, and an aggressively hooked nose. He looked like he might have been one of the singer’s security people who’d been left behind, except his suit wasn’t good enough and his face was too hard.
    The man sat at a desk at the back of the bullpen area, isolated from the rest of the staff, and he watched J. D. and Vandy approach without blinking.
    Or smiling. When they turned down a corridor to the left, J. D. could feel the man’s eyes on his back.
    Vandy gestured J. D. into a large office with a view that went all the way to the ocean. She got him seated comfortably in front of her desk, and after she made absolutely sure he didn’t care for any sort of refreshment, she closed the door.
    Just as soon as she seated herself, j D. asked, keeping his tone light, “Who’s the guy outside, the one who looks like a hit man with a toothache?”
    The corners of Vandy Ellison’s mouth turned down.
    “You don’t want to know about him. I don’t want to know about him. Or why he’s even still around. He’s not important, believe me.”
    “Okay,” J. D. said mildly.
    But he could see he’d hit a nerve. Even taking out his checkbook didn’t bring back Vandy Ellison’s smile. She looked down and drummed her fingers on her desk, trying to regain her composure.
    “I’m sorry if I upset you,” J. D. told her.
    “No, no, it’s not you,” she said, shaking her head. Then she looked up at
    J. D.
    “Do you know what that man wanted to do?”
    “No.”
    “He wanted to look in Marva’s handbag.” She gave him a minute to plumb the depths of that outrage, and then repeated it in case he couldn’t quite believe his ears.
    “He wanted to look in Marva Weisman’s handbag!”
    It took J. D. a moment to remember that Marva Weisman was the diva’s name.
    “Did he get his way?” J. D. asked.
    “He did not!” Vandy Ellison said stoutly.
    “He also wanted to disarm her security escort before they entered our offices. Can you imagine? He didn’t get that, either.”
    “He’s with campaign security, then? Secret Service?”
     
    “That man,” she said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “is Special Agent Formerly in Charge Dante DeVito He’s the sonofabitch who almost let Senator Raw-ley get killed in Chicago.”
    J. D. frowned.
    “I have to admit, I can’t see why someone like him would be kept on.”
    “Del is just a sweetheart, sometimes too