Alison could tell by the woman's expression that she was not the least bit interested.

"Choose color," the woman said, motioning to a rack of perhaps eighty small bottles. "Choose, then come."

Alison noted that the chair in which she would be done was catty-corner from the older of Griswold's females. Funny, she mused, that she should think of them that way, even though she had absolutely no clue as to how they and the legendary agent were connected. She hurried over to the rack and quickly selected Marooned on a Desert Isle. She had only a limited time to insert herself into the lives of the two women, and if she made a poor choice in colors, there was always the salon back in D.C.

"Soak… Soak here," the waiflike but clearly controlling manicurist ordered. "What you do to nails?" she mumbled to herself, shaking her head in utter dismay. "What you do?"

Alison risked a glance over at the woman across from her. She had probably been too lost in the girl to notice, but this woman, probably in her early twenties, was, by anyone's standards, nearly as striking. Thin and open in her manner and expression, she was a bit darker skinned than the girl. The woman's eyes were wide and innocent, and her high cheekbones and sensuous mouth were the stuff of cover girls.

Okay, Alison thought to herself. Be careful, but not too careful… It's showtime.

"What color did you choose?" she ventured as the icebreaker.

The woman was clearly used to people starting conversations with her and didn't seem to mind.

"I always use Red Anything Good Lately?"

Her English was excellent, with just enough of a Latino edge to make clear that Spanish had once been her primary language. Alison checked the bottle.

"Great name. Great color. I work with kids, so I'm happy when my nails make it for a week."

"Nails bad," the manicurist muttered. "Very bad."

"You run a day-care center. I heard when you were at the counter. Is it near here?"

"No. Actually, it's outside of Fredericksburg. I came down to meet some friends for dinner, but I'm early."

Actually. Alison decided that as often as not, the word introduced a lie-at least in her world it seemed to.

Actually, I'm an astronaut… Yeah, that's it, an astronaut.

Lying had never been pleasant for her and, in fact, she had never been very good at it, but in preparing to go undercover she had been trained in the art and had proven to be quite educable. She wondered if, when this assignment was done, she would be able to undergo some sort of debriefing to reconnect with the honesty she had packed away.

"Oh, I love children," the woman said. "I look forward to having some, myself, one day."

"I'm sure you will. My name's Suzanne."

Error! Alison realized. Fredericksburg… child care… Suzanne. She had already offered way too much information. As facile as she had become at bending and even mauling the truth, she had lost sight of the fact that if the woman reported on their adventure at A Place for Nails, Griswold had all the resources he needed to assure himself that, in all probability, no such combination existed. Having established that fact, he might be much more alert than he otherwise had reason to be. If nothing else, from now on he would be paying much more attention to his rearview mirror.

"And I am Constanza… Connie."

"Pleased to meet you, Connie. You two are together?"

She nodded toward the girl.

"Yes."

"Is she your sister?"

The smallest cloud passed over the woman's upbeat expression, then vanished.

"No," she said benignly. "Beatriz is… just a friend. I am her…" She paused, searching for the right word. "Tutor."

She hadn't prefaced her explanation with the word actually, but she might as well have.

Alison decided to push things just a bit.

"Hello, Beatriz," she said to the girl. "I'm Suzanne."

The remarkable beauty smiled over at her.

"Hello, pleased to meet you," she said, her English densely accented. Then she lowered her eyes again to focus on her nails. Her response was packaged, as if she had learned it from a tape… or from her tutor.

Hello.

Hello, pleased to meet you.

"Goodness, but she is very beautiful," Alison commented.

"I know," Connie said. "Her English is improving, but she is still embarrassed by it."

"Yours is nearly perfect. Are you both from the same place?"

Keep digging! Alison exhorted herself. Keep searching for some sort of opening you can begin to probe.

"Yes, Mexico," Connie said, "but not the same city."

"Oh, I should have been able to tell. I spent years as a child living with my grandmother in Chihuahua. Beatriz, ¿dónde vas a clase?"

Where do you go to school?

The girl looked up, nonplussed.

"She is tutored at home," Connie said, quickly and somewhat uncomfortably.

The blue-haired lady had repaired to the small drying area, and the pair were nearing the end of their manicures. They might choose to sit in the drying area as well, or they might simply leave. They didn't seem like the type who would risk smudging, but Alison worried that her question about school may have made the tutor willing to take the risk. She could back off and hope to learn more another time through surveillance, or she could push on and risk further alerting the woman or, worse, having her inadvertently alert Griswold. As things were, Alison's manicurist was in overdrive, and she had nearly caught up with the others.

A young mother wheeled her sleeping infant into the salon and entered into an animated discussion with the available manicurist. Alison decided to risk a little more probing.

"¿Vives con familia?" she asked, hoping that Beatriz might perk up and join the conversation. Do you live with relatives?

"No, well, yes," the woman replied in terse English. "An uncle."

Beatriz stood up at that moment, extending her glistening, wet nails in front of her and turning toward the dryers. She was surprisingly tall, Alison realized-and unselfconsciously regal in her bearing. Her lithe body, highlighted by her designer jeans and tank top, was absolutely arresting. A surpassingly lovely pubescent Mexican girl… a beautiful, young tutor… no relatives in Richmond except a probably bogus uncle… residence in a magnificent old home that almost certainly belonged to some secret incarnation of Treat Griswold. Alison felt queasy as her mind spun through the possibilities.

More information, she thought. Try for more.

"What does her uncle do here in Richmond?" she asked in English.

"Beatriz, just a few minutes of drying, then we leave," Connie said in Spanish, gingerly carrying her cell phone to the seat next to the girl. "He is a salesman," she said over her shoulder to Alison.

"There, nails were ugly, now perfect," the bellicose manicurist announced. "Now, go dry."

The drying stations were three opposite three. Alison took one across from Beatriz and Connie, trying to frame a question that would further elucidate Griswold's relationship to the two of them while also gauging when she could ask it without seeming too curious.

"I just broke up with my boyfriend," she tried, in English. "He turned out to be a real jerk-you know, all he cared about was himself. Your uncle wouldn't by any chance be single, would he?"

Beatriz clearly understood, because she looked down and was unable to fully stifle an impish grin.

"He is single," Connie said, "but he works very hard and has no time for any women… except for his niece."

Again, the sly smile from Beatriz.

Alison's queasiness intensified. Something was going on between Griswold and the girl. The deepest parts of Alison's intuition were telling her so.

"Ah, well," Alison said. "A man wrapped up in his work is not exactly what I had in mind. I want one who will be all wrapped up in me."