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That’s all.” He gave her a fake smile. “Comes with the territory.”
    Quinn followed him downstairs. By the time he reached Thelma’s desk, he was loose and smiling, and when he said goodbye, the starchy, lawyer-hating receptionist couldn’t maintain her neutral expression.
    Outside on the steps, Quinn smiled at her former boss. “You charmed Thelma. That’s not easy to do.”
    “Thelma? Oh, the receptionist.” He grinned. “Doesn’t like lawyers, does she?”
    An answer wasn’t necessary. Quinn had no illusions about Gerard Lattimore. He didn’t like surprises, and he never revealed all he knew on any subject. It wasn’t a stretch to guess that whatever was going on with Alicia, he probably knew or guessed more than he was saying. If one of his people was going off the deep end, he’d find out-and he’d be careful. He was a political animal, alert enough, nimble enough, to jump out of the way before he got burned.
    After he left, Quinn didn’t feel any better for having told him about Alicia. She returned to her office and stood at a leaded-glass window, staring down at a center courtyard with a formal maze of shrubs, flowering trees and stone benches. The pretty, sedate scene made Quinn wish she’d had coffee with Alicia there instead of down the street. The atmosphere might have calmed her and helped her to articulate what was wrong.
    Quinn checked her private office line, but she had no messages.
    If Alicia was okay, why not call and reassure her?
    Dropping into her swivel chair, Quinn let her gaze settle on the dark, ominous oil painting of her great-great-grandfather that hung on the wall to her right. His name, too, was Quinn Harlowe. His portrait came with the office. Like her, he had black hair, pale skin and hazel eyes, but his face had more sharp angles than hers, and his expression was more dour than she could ever manage.
    As a little kid, the painting had scared the daylights out of her. Her father would grin at it with pride. “What an incredible man he was. Nothing could stop him. He had guts and luck.”
    A scholar and adventurer, Quinn Harlowe had died at ninety-eight, having explored parts of all the continents. His son wasn’t so lucky, dying in an avalanche in the Canadian Rockies at fifty. His son, Quinn’s grandfather, Murtagh Harlowe, was a gentle soul, a Civil War expert who’d all but raised her while her parents were off on adventures of their own. Everyone who knew her father as a baby said they realized he was a throwback to that first Quinn Harlowe, a risk-taker, even before he could walk.
    Quinn appreciated her family history, but she didn’t worry about where she fit in. She liked her quiet cottage by the bay, her work as an analyst. She wasn’t an adrenaline junky.
    Right now she wanted to find Alicia. Whatever it took. She called several friends she and Alicia had in common, but no one had heard from her. Had she gone back to the cottage?
    On a good day, with reasonable traffic, the drive to Yorkville took about three hours. Beltway traffic, however, was seldom reasonable.
    “The osprey, the osprey.”
    An osprey pair had built a nest on a buoy just offshore in front of the cottage. The large birds of prey made Alicia nervous. They’d never held much romance for her.
    “The osprey will kill me.”
    What on earth did Alicia mean?
    Quinn glanced at her watch. Almost three. If she got moving, she could be at her cottage before nightfall.

5
    Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gerard Lattimore had his driver drop him back at the Department of Justice. As he returned to his office, he could feel his pulse throbbing in his temple, as if Quinn’s words were pounding themselves into his brain. Somehow or another, Alicia Miller’s nervous breakdown-whatever was wrong with her-would come back to haunt him. He was her boss. He’d hired her. If she went off the deep end, it would reflect badly on him.
    Depressed, drunk, drugged-did it matter what had caused her to make the