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sent Reeder’s hands into his pants pockets as he took the short walk to Thirty-Fourth Street Northwest and the million-dollar town house he called home. Selling a 49 percent interest in ABC to investors had, to say the least, left him better off than staying in government service, and best of all, he still maintained control of the company.
    The two-story white-brick building was finally starting to feel like home to Reeder. Built in 1900, the town house appealed to his sense of history, but had been renovated to meet his twenty-first-century needs. He stopped, got his mail, then unlocked the red door and was greeted by the annoying beep of the alarm timer. He punched in the seven-digit PIN.
    A pleasant female voice said, “Disarmed, ready to arm.”
    “Thanks, Rosie,” he said to the alarm voice, which he’d named after the robot maid from a cartoon show his father had watched as a small boy.
    From the entryway Reeder took a left into a white-walled living room, footsteps echoing off hardwood as he moved through the dining room, dropping the mail off on the table before entering the galley kitchen. He opened the stainless steel refrigerator, grabbed a Heineken, twisted off the cap, took a long damn pull.
    Reeder was not a heavy drinker, not anymore, but he lived for a beer at the end of the day the way he once had the after-dinner cigarette that had stopped almost twenty years ago—when Melanie found out she was pregnant, Reeder quit cold.
    He rarely watched TV in his living room, but since he was expecting Sloan, he dropped into one of the easy chairs, grabbed the remote, then turned on the large screen over a fireplace whose mantel was arrayed with framed pictures of Amy at various ages. Soon he was watching the Washington Nationals game. Pittsburgh was in town, and wily veteran Stephen Strasburg was on the mound for the Nats.
    Raising his bottle to the TV, Reeder said, “Never fear, Stephen. Experience and cunning can beat youth and skill anytime.”
    The game was in the top of the first, no one on, two outs, and a two-two count on the third hitter in the Pirates’ lineup. Confirming Reeder’s salute, Strasburg threw a changeup to the hitter, who was so far off balance he almost fell to a knee trying to hold up his swing.
    By the top of the fourth, Reeder had taken his empty bottle to the kitchen and wondered if he shouldn’t just go on upstairs. He had all but given up on Sloan—the FBI agent said an hour, and it’d been almost two.
    Reeder was reaching for the remote when the doorbell chimed.
    There, on Reeder’s doorstep, was Gabriel Sloan holding up a six-pack of Guinness dark. Wearing half a grin, he said, “So I’m late. Peace offering.”
    “You’re fucking late. Peace offering accepted.”
    Reeder stepped aside, and Sloan strode straight through into the living room, set the beer on the floor in front of the coffee table, yanked a bottle out, and plopped into the chair next to Reeder’s. The only light in the room was the screen and bleed-in from the dining room.
    Several inches shorter than Reeder, Sloan wore a charcoal pinstripe Brooks Brothers suit he usually reserved for federal court appearances.
    “You must’ve announced the task force to the media,” Reeder said casually, grabbing a bottle from the six-pack before slipping into his chair. He muted the TV.
    Sloan nodded, his side-parted blond hair a shade that hid any encroaching gray. Though they were about the same age, the white-haired Reeder had always looked older, until a family tragedy had taken a toll on Sloan.
    While they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the two had been close since before their girls were born, having met on a joint Secret Service–FBI job. Their two families had spent much time together, and when Sloan’s daughter, Kathy, died, Amy—who’d viewed Kath as a sort of big sister—took it hard.
    Kathy Sloan had found herself pregnant, and—hoping her conservative parents would never