Inside the new wing, indirect lighting gave the feeling of being underwater, a part of the oceanic environment recreated for public exhibition. A stairless spiral encircled the giant fish tank, where predators swam among prey, content because they were fed regularly from the outside.

Lillian Parker, longtime newswoman and producer of a network news feature program, sipped a glass of champagne. She was impressed. She liked the sense of the place. And it was one hell of an accomplishment for Ashley Wakefield, whom everyone knew had been the impetus for the project.

With her practiced eye, Lillian could tell the institute people, with their beards and lack of makeup and unselfconscious style of dressing, from the guests, all so stylish and polished and very aware of themselves and the impact they were having—or weren’t. She noted two United States senators, the mayor of Boston, prominent New Englanders, media people who were there as celebrities, not journalists.

Lillian herself had not been on the official guest list. A friend of hers, an anchorman for one of the Boston stations, was, and she’d seduced his invitation from him, even getting him to promise he wouldn’t ask her why she had suddenly taken an interest in fish.

Of course she hadn’t. It was Ashley Wakefield who interested her, whose name in a brief article announcing the opening of the wing in the New York Times had sent Lillian for her brandy decanter.

But Ashley Wakefield hadn’t yet made her entrance, and Lillian contented herself with champagne and small talk. She knew the two senators, of course. They made sure they came over and said hello. At fifty-two, Lillian Parker was one of the most successful women in broadcasting in the nation, a trailblazer. With her deep auburn hair and cool turquoise eyes, she was attractive, although she’d never given a damn about her looks. She smoked too much, drank too much, and she was bored to distraction when her friends started talking about fanny tucks and facelifts. She was a journalist. A newshound. She always had been.

It was her greatest virtue, she thought, and her worst flaw.

There was a hushed silence. Lillian polished off her champagne and looked toward the temporary podium, erected in front of a beautiful exhibit of sea-shells. She expected to see the familiar figure of the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Instead her gaze fell on the slender, dazzling figure of a dark-haired woman in a simple black evening gown that had probably cost upward of ten thousand dollars, and glittering jewels. Her eyes were a vibrant, startling blue, and her smile left people breathless. Lillian was no exception. She found herself spellbound as she moved through the crowd toward the podium.

Ashley Wakefield. She could be no one else.

The notes on her in the program were wholly inadequate. She was a trustee and director of the institute, a longtime volunteer who had “adopted” a moray eel as a sophomore in college and now was publisher of the highly respected Currents, the institute’s bimonthly magazine, as well as president of her own private firm. There was nothing about her. Her family, her friends, her background, her love life. Those were the details Lillian Parker craved.