"I'm very much into maintaining confidences."

Hilal popped a piece of gum in his mouth and started chewing and talking fast as though beating up on the gum and grinding his teeth were giving him the juice to confess everything. "Last year's Christmas party? We'd won a nice little contract. Nothing to write home about, but we splurged anyway to keep up morale. Booze, band, fancy buffet, and a private room at the Ritz-Carlton. We spent too much but that was all right."

"Okay. So what?"

"So Tuck gets shitfaced and makes a pass at my wife."

"A pass? How?"

"According to her, by grabbing her ass and trying to stick his tongue down her throat."

"Did you see it?"

"No, but I believe my wife."

Sean shifted his weight to his right foot and drilled Hilal with a skeptical look. "If you believed your wife, why the hell are you still partners with Tuck?"

Hilal looked down, obviously embarrassed. "I wanted to kick his ass and walk out the door. That's what I really wanted to do. But my wife wouldn't let me."

"She wouldn't let you?"

"We have four kids. My wife stays home. Like I said, everything we have is tied up in this business. I'm a minority partner. If I tried to pull out, Tuck could screw me, leave me without a penny. We couldn't survive that. We'd have lost everything. So we swallowed our pride. But I have never let my wife be in the same room with Tuck since then. And I never will. You can talk to her if you want. Call her right now. She'll tell you exactly what I just did."

"Was Pam at the Christmas party?"

Hilal looked surprised for a moment and then nodded. "Right, I see where you're going. Yeah, she was there. Dressed as Mrs. Claus if you can believe it. Bright red hair and skinny. I think some people were laughing at her not with her."

"You think she saw Tuck messing with your wife?"

"The room wasn't that big. I think a lot of people saw it, actually."

"But no visible reaction from Pam?"

"They didn't leave together, I can tell you that." Hilal paused. "Look, anything else? Because I've really got to get home."

Sean walked back to his car. The principal reasons he believed Hilal were twofold. First was "Cassandra" being the password on Tuck's computer. And second was Tuck's claim that he was having financial troubles and Hilal was trying to take advantage of that. After his meeting with Jane and Tuck, Sean had taken a much harder look at Tuck's financial records he'd found on the hard drive. The man had a stock and bond portfolio worth in excess of eight figures, and outstanding debts at less than a quarter of that amount, so his cry of poverty was total bullshit. Yet if they knew he had cracked Tuck's hard drive, they also had to know he would find that lie out. But sister and brother had still tried to snooker him. Sean put that aside and turned to the next obvious questions.

So why did you come back early, Tuck? And what were you doing for almost an hour between the airport and your house?

On the drive back to his office, he called Michelle. She didn't answer. He left a message. He was worried about his partner. Yet he had spent much of his time worrying about her. On the surface she was the most rock-solid person he'd ever met. But he'd learned that rock had a few cracks if one poked at it deeply enough.

He drove home, packed an overnight bag, zipped to the airport, and paid an exorbitant walk-up fare to snag a flight to Jacksonville that was leaving in an hour.

He needed to talk to Cassandra Mallory. In person.

He got a phone call on his way to Washington Dulles Airport. It was his linguistic friend, Phil, from Georgetown University. "I've got someone who is familiar with the Yi language. If you want to send me a sample of what you're talking about I can let her look at it."

"I'll e-mail it to you," said Sean. When he got to Dulles he sent the sample. He walked to the security gate praying the letters on the arms would lead to something. But the more he thought about it he didn't see how that was possible. As Michelle had rightly pointed out, the sample wasn't even in Chinese.

He stared down at the picture of Cassandra Mallory that David Hilal had e-mailed him. She clearly had all the tools with which to tempt a man.

As the fifty-seat jet swept into a clear night sky, Sean hoped this trip was not taking him in the opposite direction of where he needed to go to find Willa.

Every day that went by without the little girl being found meant it was far more likely they would discover her body instead of her.

CHAPTER 26

JANE COX LOOKED OUT the window of the First Family's living room. Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania was in the middle of the capital city. And yet for those who called it home it might as well have been in a different solar system. There was no one on earth who could fully understand Jane's life other than the families who had inhabited this house, tying their fate to the office of the presidency. And even for some of these folks, times had indeed changed. Even as recent a president as Harry Truman could walk around town with only a single guard accompanying him. That was unthinkable now. And there had never been as much scrutiny over the smallest act, the fewest words, or the slightest gesture as there was now.

She could understand why some First Ladies had become addicted to drugs and alcohol or been clinically depressed. She stayed away from anything except the occasional glass of wine or a beer on the campaign trail when the photo op required it. Her only constant drug had been pot when she was in college and a snort of cocaine during a post-college jaunt to the Caribbean. This had thankfully gone largely unnoticed at the time and was never reported later when she had undertaken the long journey from liberated student to First Spouse.

She called Pam Dutton's sister and talked to John and Colleen, doing her best to reassure the children. She could sense their fear and wished she had more to tell them than that she was hoping and praying that Willa would soon be home. She next called her brother, who was still in the hospital for observation, though it was hoped he would be released soon. The two kids had visited him.

Jane had her dinner brought up to her by the White House staff and ate it alone. She had several invitations to dine out this evening and had declined them all. Most were from folks interested merely in pumping up their own status by breaking bread with the First Lady and snagging a cherished photo with which they could later bore their grandchildren. She would rather be by herself. Well, as alone as a home with over ninety full-time staff and too many security agents to count would allow.

She decided to take a stroll outside, accompanied, of course, by aides and the Secret Service. She sat for a while in the Children's Garden, a shady spot that was the brainchild of Lady Bird Johnson. Jane loved to look at the bronzed hand- and footprint pavers of presidential grandchildren lining the walkway. She hoped her own kids would get on the ball and start delivering some grandkids for her and Dan.

Later, she passed by the tulip beds in the Rose Garden where thousand of bulbs would bloom in the spring, giving dazzling color to the grounds. Next, she headed up to the solarium, which had been constructed from an attic room at the request of Grace Coolidge. It was the least formal room in the mansion and also, in Jane's opinion, had the best views. First Ladies had often led the charge on both enhancing the White House for future presidents and their families and also making it their own. Jane had done some of that in the last three years, though never approaching the level of work spearheaded by Jackie Kennedy.

She returned to her quarters and recalled the first day they had arrived here over three years ago. The former First Family had checked out at 10 a.m. and the Coxes had come in at 4 p.m. It was like a rental flipping. And yet when they had walked in the door, the clothes were in the closets, the pictures on the walls, the favorite snacks in the fridge, and her personal toiletries lined up on her sink. She still didn't know how they had managed it all in six hours.