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son-of-a-bitch is a natural. I knew it when I signed on. We’re going to be the headline news again after this.”
    She gazed upwards, seemingly seeing beyond the dull, cheap plaster of the hotel room’s ceiling and far out, beyond, and up into the sky. “There’s something special here. Do you feel it?”
    Mike looked at Dee. Her face was utterly alive and animated.
    “You know what it is, Mike?” she asked. “It’s belief. People can believe in Jack Hodges. That’s rare. That’s special.”
    “I know,” said Mike. “I’ve never felt this way about a politician before.”
    Dee laughed. “We sound like two high school girls discussing their latest crush,” she said. Then she stopped and frowned. “But you know what else? It also makes me want to know why someone tried to kill him. I don’t like not knowing who that woman is who wanted our Jack dead.”
    Mike looked at Dee. Her tone changed completely. Back to business.
    “The cops said she was just some homeless kook,” Mike said. “They don’t even have a name. Just a crazy lady with a gun.”
    Dee grasped him by the hand and looked him straight in the eye.
    ’Jack Hodges is our man now. We need to be protecting him from nasty surprises. We need to know more about that woman than the cops do. It’s time for you to take a little trip to jail, Mike. You need to pay her a visit.”
     
    * * *
     
    WITH A sudden shove, Lauren O’Keefe was rammed back against the wall of the living room. She glared at the man who bumped his fat backside into her, but realized that in this crush of people she could do little more than silently curse him. It was astonishing, she thought, to see what happened to the Hodges campaign. As a political blogger, funding her coverage of the election on her own dime, desperately hoping to make it big, she regularly checked in with the former General’s campaign. It was always the same. The good candidate playing to a tiny audience in half-full barns or school halls. He just gave his stump speech and moved on.
    But now this.
    It was meant to be a house party in Iowa City, but the suburban couple who invited Hodges into their home clearly had no idea what his campaign had become. Their spacious McMansion was big enough for 50 people. Maybe. Not 250. Every available space in all the downstairs rooms was rammed with bodies desperately crammed in, craning their heads to see Hodges, standing on a stool in the hall, giving his speech and taking their questions.
    With the physical difficulty of a contortionist, Lauren managed to get out a notebook and pen and jot down a few quotes. But eventually she just gave up and watched Hodges listen patiently to a series of questions. He did not seem to have changed much with his new status as a political rock star.
    One young woman, her voice almost impossible to hear, was on the edge of tears as she spoke of how job after job had departed overseas, leaving her struggling to find even minimum wage work. Hodges spoke quietly to her, touching her elbow and gently squeezing her arm like a concerned father. It seemed a moment designed for that single voter alone, not the TV cameras peering over people’s heads.
    Suddenly another body bumped into Lauren as Hodges bade a quick goodbye to the crowd. She delivered a sharp kick in the direction the bump came from. A yelp revealed her blow hit home.
    “Excuse me,” she said quickly and looked into the startled face of a youngish, red-haired man. He looked angry and then his face softened when he saw her.
    “No problem. I think I bumped you. Hey, I know you. You’re a blogger, right? For the Horse Race ? I’m Mike Sweeney,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m with the Senator’s staff.”
    The two shook hands awkwardly as the crowd moved around them like an ebbing and flowing human tide.
    “Quite a change to your campaign, Mike. You must be delighted,” Lauren said.
    “It’s certainly a bit different from a week ago. But, you know, the Senator