“And remember, if you start to skid for whatever reason, it won’t seem to make sense, but steer into the skid.”

“Steer where you veer.”

“Exactly.”

She rounded the first pumpkin, then the second, and was confidently on her way to cruising past the third when she overcompensated the turn, cranking the wheel too far to the left. The bang and bump made it clear what’d just happened.

She cringed.

“Another fruitality,” I sighed.

She eyed me.

“Come on, now,” I said. “That was funny, right?”

“You’re starting to scare me.” Then she shook her head. “I wasn’t gonna hit that pumpkin. I swear. Maybe it rolled in front of us because of the Coriolis effect.”

“C’mon, let’s pick them up and head home.”

++++

Lots of people in the city choose to go without personal vehicles—and I understood why. If it hadn’t been necessary for my job at the Bureau, I might not have kept mine.

I aimed the car toward the parkway. From here, at this time of day, I expected we should be back to our apartment within the hour.

“So,” she said. “I watched the video.”

“The video?”

“The one with the senator’s son.”

“Tessa, I told you not—”

“I know, but it’s in the news and . . . It was . . . I didn’t like it. I didn’t like seeing it.”

“Of course you didn’t.” It’s not something anyone should like seeing, I thought.

Our Cyber division was taking down the video wherever it popped up online, but that hadn’t seemed to be doing a whole lot of good. It was out there. And once something’s on the Internet, you’re fighting a losing battle trying to contain it, even with the resources the Bureau has.

“How much did you watch?” I asked her.

“Enough.” Then she added, “But if it’s a suicide, why are you involved? I still don’t get that.”

I didn’t mention my observation that someone else had been present when Jon Murray died. Only a few people knew, including Assistant Director DeYoung and the senator, who’d invited me to his estate tonight so I could have a look around. Otherwise, we hadn’t released the information—I didn’t want the media reporting it. Right now, we had an edge, however slight that might be, and I needed additional information before we released any more details to the public.

“I never said I was involved,” I told Tessa evasively.

“Gotcha.” She’d started chewing a glob of vegan-friendly gum—which I hadn’t even known existed until I met her. “So what’s your plan?”

“I can’t discuss specifics of an investigation.”

“But if you could?”

“Sorry.”

“Broad strokes.”

“My plan . . . Hmm . . . I’d have to say I have a plan so secret that even I don’t know what it is.”

She stopped chewing. “How long have you been waiting to use that line?”