“Good idea, Ham,” he said. “The President gave a fine speech.”

Kelly grunted in reply.

As Mumfries departed the building, reporters shouted questions at him about his political plans. He pretended not to hear and entered a limousine with his wife and children. Margaret got into another car. O’Connor pushed past Addis at the auditorium’s rear exit.

“I’m going to ride back with her,” she said. “You want to come?”

“No, I have my car here.”

“We should talk. Maybe you should talk to Dan, too.”

“About what?”

“What comes next.”

“I’m not sure I want to know. And I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Getting applause as the wife of a slain president is not the same thing as getting votes.”

“Nick, you think this just happened? Come on. Nothing just happens. You should know that. I know you think Dan’s a sleazebag, but he’s smart. And he cares probably more than you think he does. That girl who first started clapping, she was—well, never mind that. You really should talk to Dan.”

O’Connor ran to the motorcade and jumped into the limousine with Margaret. He pictured O’Connor at a shooting range firing a .357 at a silhouette target. That was two years ago on a rare Saturday afternoon off. She had taken him to a gun club in Virginia to explain her fondness for recreational shooting. This short woman with thin arms discharging a weapon—Addis laughed when he remembered how she had yelled out “Boom!” each time she squeezed the trigger.

That was real clever, Addis thought, as he walked back to his car. Seed the audience. One person could set it off. Damn clever.

“Mr. Addis?”

A woman in a Georgetown University sweatshirt, jeans, and a baseball cap was walking at his side.

“Yes,” he said and kept moving.

“Uh, can I, like, talk to you a minute?”

One more person who wants to tell me how sorry they are?

“I have to get back to the White House,” he lied.

“It’s important—kinda.”

He stopped. They were standing by an ivy-covered fence that surrounded an athletic track.

“I knew Allison Meade,” she said.

His face was blank.

“You know, the girl in the hotel, with that reporter.”

“Sorry. I don’t know anything more than what’s been in the paper.”

“I do.”

Addis didn’t know what to say.

“She was a friend, and, uh, we worked together,” she said. The woman was nervous. She took off her cap and twirled it around a finger. Her brown hair was in a pony-tail.

“Where?”