Spontaneous applause. He waited it out. The smiling politician was gone, replaced by the somber statesman.

“We need a special kind of person to lead us in these perilous times.” Blake bowed his head and when he lifted it again, there was the sheen of tears in his eyes. He could see himself on a monitor to the side and he had to admit, he was good. He had a sad cast to his face, a man who’d known tragedy and had survived, but it had marked him forever. “I intended to be that man. I wanted to be that man with all my heart. But my soul is troubled. I must admit this to you, my dear friends. I am not the man I was. I have worked hard to be what I once was. I have talked to my friends and my pastor. I have prayed on it.” Another head bow and he bit his lower lip. You could hear a pin drop in the room. Something unexpected was coming and everyone felt it.

Blake lifted his head, looked out over the crowd, everyone still, watching him.

“Dear friends.” His voice was hoarse and he coughed to clear it. He drew a hand down his face, surreptitiously wiping his eyes. Every single person in the room took note. If possible, the crowd grew even more silent. All eyes on him. “Dear friends, fellow Americans, as I said, I have prayed hard over this decision. I have searched the depths of my soul and I find I must bear open my heart to you.” He allowed his voice to wobble. “I am—I am not the man I was before the Massacre. Before—before, I was willing to go all the way to support my friend, Alex Delvaux, in his voyage to the White House. I believed with all my heart that he is—” Blake stopped, put on a horrified expression as he corrected himself. “He was the right man for the job. The job of leading these great United States forward into the third decade of the twenty-first century. Alex Delvaux is—was—a man of the future who understood the values of the past. He was one of a kind, and we will not see his like again for generations.”

Blake’s voice broke and he conjured up a tear or two, enough to make his cheeks glisten in the glow of the spotlights. Flashes from journalists’ cameras started up, creating a strobe effect.

Blake heaved a sigh. “I knew it would be hard to fill Alex’s shoes. Almost impossible. He was a man with a strong vision for our country and with the strong hand necessary to make that vision come true. I knew Alex well. He was my best friend. His family was like my family, and I honestly thought, unworthy though I am, I could pick up the fallen torch. But—” He held up his hand. Utter silence in the room. Not even a rustling of clothes. “The Massacre broke something in me. I lost my best friend. I lost friends I’ve known since childhood. I cannot stop grieving and my heart is too full of sorrow to be an effective candidate. After much thought and prayer, I realize that I am not the man who can pick up that fallen torch. There is a better man than I for our party and for our country.”

Blake stopped, looked heavenward. Actually he looked up at the lighting technician’s bay. They’d arranged this and the technicians knew what to do.

Blake pointed his finger dramatically. “There he is! This is the man who can carry this country forward into the future and keep us safe from further attacks!”

The lighting technician unerringly spotlit John London’s distinguished face. Piped-in music blared. Nobody was clapping. Most of the morons in the room had their mouths open.

London had the idiotic look of the beauty contestant who’d just been declared Miss America. He all but burst into tears.

Fucker was ruining the moment.

Blake gave a prearranged signal and the lights focused on him again. He leaned forward, making his voice deep, serious, but excited. “Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, let’s hear it for the next president of these United States, John London!”

Portland

Isabel watched the events unfolding in the Sentinel Hotel ballroom. She’d been in the kitchen preparing a ton of food, happily humming. Three guys, two and maybe three women. Lunch and afternoon snacks and then dinner. Her head swirled with recipes and that gear she had, the one that told her unerringly what food paired well with what, had finally cranked to life after being dead for so long.

“Honey!” Joe’d called from the living room. “Come see this.”

Isabel had walked into the living room, drying her hands on her apron, looking with indifference at the screen. Some kind of political rally. She couldn’t care less.

Then she saw the chyron on the bottom, big red letters scrolling across the bottom of the screen. HECTOR BLAKE STEPS DOWN, APPOINTS JOHN LONDON AS PARTY STANDARD-BEARER.

What? She stood stock-still, shocked to the core.

John London was a joke! Those handsome looks hid a mediocre mind and dubious morals. Dad had hated him.

Joe put an arm around her. “I’m sorry, honey. That should have been your father.”

“Yes, it should have been. Uncle Hector was a miserable replacement. But John London? He’s not worthy in any way of this. He’s a moron and a lech. I’m ashamed to have him mentioned in the same breath as Dad.”

Joe looked at her curiously. “Yeah. I wasn’t able to follow US politics too closely in the field, but London’s been around a long time. No one has ever praised him for his smarts. But a lech?”

“Pinched me once so hard I was sore for days,” Isabel said. “Tried to fondle my breasts when I was sixteen. He’s a total creep. And he doesn’t give a shit about the environment. How dare Uncle Hector choose him as if he were a natural successor to Dad!” She frowned up at him. “What?”

He’d gone all stiff, his hand biting into her shoulder.

“He pinched you? Fondled you?” Joe’s voice sounded choked.

“Yes. He’s a creep. What was Uncle Hector thinking?”

“I want to tear his throat out,” Joe said.

So did she.

“I like your thinking, Joe.” She sighed. “But it’s not possible. He’s going to be surrounded by Secret Service agents from now on. And I don’t think pinching and fondling, however awful, are crimes that warrant having your throat torn out.”

Though the idea was appealing.

John London as president of the United States was so wrong on so many different levels she felt sick. But he’d make it probably, if he could keep it in his pants and if they didn’t let him talk too much. Other morons had made it. And there could never be a candidate like her dad. Certainly not Hector and certainly not London.

Her father had been smart and good and capable of fighting for what he believed in. He’d had solid old-fashioned values while being open and tolerant. And he truly believed in protecting the environment and would have fought—and fought hard—special interests. There was no one else like him on the political horizon.

And her mother’s nightmare, the reason they’d fought so bitterly over his candidacy, had actually come true. He’d been assassinated.

And so had she.

“This must be disturbing for you.” Joe kissed the top of her head. “Knowing your father and knowing him.”

She looked up at him and for the first time saw something she should have seen before. He shared characteristics with her father, which hadn’t occurred to her before. She’d thought they were polar opposites.

Her father had loved living large. He always dressed in expensive clothes, wore expensive shoes and had expensive tastes. She rarely saw Joe in anything but jeans and T-shirts. A jacket when he was really dressing up. Track shoes and boots. He didn’t have three-hundred-dollar haircuts and manicured nails.

But he said what he meant and he meant what he said and there didn’t seem to be any bullshit in him at all, exactly like her father.

“It is. I hate the thought of a man like that representing my father in any way.” She snaked her arm around Joe’s lean waist and rested her head against his shoulder. “Nothing I can do about it, though.”