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impeccably dressed in his black suit and tasteful blue-and-silver-striped tie. Dan stood shoulder to shoulder with him. David looked at them all with the gravest expression he could summon.
    “No one outside of this group is to know—not for the next ten days. You must keep it quiet. Rick, you’ll have to stay inside your home for the duration.”
    “But I live with Theresa, my fiancée. She’ll have to know.”
    “And I’m going to have to call this in to my chief in New York,” Nick said.
    “Then there’s the ME and the DA and my guy, the best detective we have on the force. He’s one of the governor’s men,” Dan said.
    David looked at them all again and took a breath. Luckily he loved when a case got complicated.
    “You got anyone to tell?” He looked at the mayor. The man shook his head no.
    “Then that’s it.” David resisted the urge to have them all squeeze some blood out of their fingers, spit, and shake hands. Then he remembered that Theresa was friends with Grace and Pixie, and he felt uneasy.
    “Rick, are you sure Theresa will keep quiet about this? About Nick being alive and posing as you?” David looked unblinking at the man, but Rick turned away, unresponsive.
    “O’Keefe, Young—I expect you two to handle this case and keep it quiet. This plan is important to the safety of my soon-to-be son-in-law,” the mayor dictated.
    Dan put the would-be investigation in motion. It wasn’t long before the ME and one police car arrived. In the midst of the crime scene, Dan’s guy from the detective squad, Joseph Dellario, took some pictures for the file. The ME examined Nick and made him get on the stretcher. They would take him in for overnight observation. The blow to his head warranted attention. That meant some hospital personnel would know he was alive. David didn’t like the fact that so many people had to be in on the details, but it couldn’t be helped. He especially didn’t like that he had to control a pair of women—Grace and Pixie—who, he had a deep suspicion, would probably be voted the least likely to be controlled by anyone who ever tried. Already his plan was getting out of hand—in less than an hour.
    The mayor shook his head. “I don’t like this. The media is blitzing the general vicinity and questioning people now that the ME is here. It’s a busy night. Someone was bound to have seen something. We’re out on a limb here. I expect you to find the thug or thugs who did this within one week. After that it could be an embarrassment.” They were all still standing around the back room of the restaurant, except Rick.
    “I can imagine. Let’s go have a more in-depth chat with Rick Racer, shall we?” Dan grabbed him, and they went to find Rick seated in a booth with his fiancée. Every old female relative in the place hovered over him with her consolation. The mayor cleared them all out, except for his daughter.
    She could be a problem, David thought. But he held his breath, figuratively speaking, and nodded at the young woman named Theresa. She looked Mediterranean like her father, only pretty.
    “I met two of your friends at the Boston Police Department-Scotland Yard Exchange Program coming-out party earlier tonight,” he began.
    She gave him a polite “who cares” smile. He politely withheld judgment on the young lady, as on all the young women he’d met tonight.
    “It’s been a trying night for everyone, but we’d like to have a talk with your fiancé in private. Do you mind if we steal a few minutes?”
    “We’re getting married tomorrow—or we were …” She erupted into violent sobs and Rick pounced, enveloping her in a cocoon-like hug and whispering to calm her as if she were a child.
    “She needs to know about this, David,” the mayor was saying.
    “We have no choice,” Dan agreed.
    The prospect of sharing their scheme with this young woman alarmed him. In fact, David felt like every single hair from every single follicle over his entire body,