“Want a drink?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and towed her through the crowd, nodding and smiling with that practiced politician’s charm to clear a path. There was a bar with a smiling bartender, who seemed genuinely disappointed to pour her only a glass of club soda with a twist of lime.

“Want something to eat?” Pete said. “What am I saying, you always want something to eat,” and he towed her forthwith to a buffet laden with shrimp, crab, salmon, and halibut, six different kinds of cheese, a dozen different kinds of crackers, chips and dips, and a dazzling display of Godiva chocolates.

Kate took one look and said, “Why are the plates so small?”

Pete eyed the column of shrimp leaning like the tower of Pisa from the tiny saucer held in Kate’s hand and said, “Couldn’t tell you.” He turned to survey the crowd. “Eat up. There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

“Some people” turned out to be every second person in the joint. Kate gulped her food-the pink blobs turned out to be cheese puffs, which didn’t explain why they were pink-and endured handshakes that ranged from the limp noodle to the damp rag to the hearty grip to the bone crusher, and smiles that ranged from tight-lipped to a vast expanse of synthetic enamel, from the ingratiating to the predatory.

The women were impressed by her outfit, less so by her hair and lack of makeup, and greeted her with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Whose man was she there to take? Red was a power color. Whose attention would she usurp? The men wondered if she was Pete’s protegee or his new girlfriend, or both, and what that might mean in the next legislative session in terms of lobbying. Would she be long-term or short? If long-term, how much influence would she wield over Pete’s vote? Would she drink on their tab, or would her favor be more labor intensive to acquire? Would they have to sleep with her? Would she sleep with them? Some were clearly hoping for the latter.

One woman, a slender, hard-faced blonde, who wore a black blazer over a black silk shell, white leggings, and black boots with four-inch heels that buckled over the instep, looked Kate up and down and drawled, “Cute outfit honey. Your mother pick that out for you?”

“Sondra-” Pete said, or started to.

“That’s all right, Pete,” Kate said, and smiled at Sondra. “Not my mother, my man.” She ran one teasing finger down the buttons of the glittering red jacket and back up again to trace the neckline. “He liked the idea of… buttons.” She gave the man hovering at Sondra’s elbow a languishing glance and ran her tongue slowly over her lower lip.

The man inhaled part of his drink and started to cough, spraying green liquid of some kind over Sondra’s leggings. Sondra swore. “You moron!” She brushed ineffectually at her leggings and glared at Kate.

Pete threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“Um,” the man said, his eyes watering a little, “I’m Greg Nowaka. And you are-”

The woman transferred the glare from Kate to him.

Still laughing, Pete waved him off. “Way out of your league, buddy boy. Run, run for your life.”

He towed Kate away as she said to the woman over her shoulder, “Did you practice that nostril flare in the mirror? It’s kinda cool, makes you look like you’re about to charge a red cape.”

“Jesus, Shugak, enough already.” When they had achieved what Pete considered to be a safe distance, he stopped to grin down at her. “Where’d you learn to do that? I figured I was shepherding a lamb through the wolf pack, but I’m thinking now I got that backward.”

“When in Rome,” Kate said, and wondered how soon she could get the hell out of there.

A touch on the shoulder stopped her. She turned to see Charlotte, Emily at her elbow. Emily looked at Kate with the first expression of approval Kate had yet seen. Charlotte was even smiling. “Thanks,” Charlotte said.

“For what?” Kate said.

Charlotte looked over her shoulder. “Hi, Pete.”

“Hi, sweetie.” Pete kissed her cheek and then Emily’s. “How you doing?”

Charlotte’s smile widened. “Better now.”

Pete laughed. “I bet.” He grinned down at Kate.

Kate, mystified, was about to inquire as to what had just happened, when Charlotte said, “Let me introduce you to my aunt.” She nodded to Pete, who stepped back. Charlotte led Kate to a chair tucked into a corner next to the windows. “Aunt Alice?”

The woman seated in the chair wore a sleeveless scoop-necked mauve linen sheath and was chatting animatedly with a well-dressed, smooth-featured man twenty years her junior, who looked like he was trying not to appear bored. She looked around at Charlotte’s greeting. Her hair had been artfully streaked, her large gray eyes were exquisitely made up, her fingernails were polished the same shade as her toenails, displayed in elegant sandals with delicate straps. Her collarbone was a knife edge above the neckline of her dress, her arms about the width of a piece of spaghetti, and there was something wrong with her face. The skin was very smooth and very taut, but it seemed to be pulling her lips open to show the fleshy inner lips inside. It tugged at the corners of her eyes and eyebrows, narrowing the eyes and elongating the brows. Kate wondered if perhaps Alice was recovering from burns of some kind. She’d seen burn victims grow just that kind of new skin.

“Aunt Alice, I’d like you to meet Kate Shugak.”

Aunt Alice extended a hand, the back of which was mottled with age spots. “How do you do, Ms. Shugak.”

Kate accepted the hand and wondered if she was expected to kiss it. “Kate, please,” she said.

Alice gave a perfunctory smile and said to the bored-looking man, “Alvin, meet Kate Shugak.”

Alvin took Kate’s hand. “How nice to meet you.” His eyes traveled down her throat. “Hmm.” He raised one hand and, before she could step out of reach, traced her scar with impersonal fingers. “Who’s your surgeon?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your plastic surgeon, who is he? Never mind. Whoever he is, he ought to be shot. Here.” Alvin produced a business card. “Give me a call. We’ll set up an appointment.” He took her chin in cool, impersonal hands and turned her face from side to side, and Kate was so dumbfounded at the uninvited familiarity that she let him. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” Kate said.

“Hmm,” he said again. “Not much else to be done there, at least not yet. In another twenty years, we’ll probably have to do some work on those eyes.”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Kate said, and then she pulled herself together. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. Who the hell are you anyway?”

Alvin produced a wide smile of practiced charm. “I’m sorry. I’m Alvin Bishop. I’m a plastic surgeon.” The mirthless smile widened. “Beautiful faces are us.”

“I’ve already got one, thanks,” Kate said smartly, and looked down at Alice. She understood the face now, although she would never understand the impetus behind the edifice. She had to work at keeping the pity out of her own (already beautiful) face.

“And how do you know my niece?” Alice said brightly.

Before Kate could reply, a booming male voice said, “And who do we have here?”

Kate peered up through the steadily thickening haze at what appeared to be quite the tallest man she’d ever met in her life.

The man stooped to kiss the cheek Alice presented. “Have I told you tonight how lovely you look, dear?” He dismissed the plastic surgeon with a look that stopped just short of insult. Dr. Alvin Bishop faded into the crowd, Kate catching a look of relief on his face as he went.

“Just fine, dear,” she replied. “This is Kate Shugak, a friend of Charlotte’s.”

He straightened. “Is it. Well now.” His eyes ran over Kate assessingly, and Kate got that instant vibe that every woman gets when a man is interested. Her own eyes narrowed a little.