“I don’t need any help. Not from some sleazy lawyer.”

“I know what you want: that money old Dr. Lecker is hoarding. Money your mom and granddad said is yours. Money you can use to advance the cause. And from what I see, it’s a cause worth investing in.”

“You don’t know anything. And what I know is you’re here working for them, and everything you say is a trick.”

“I’m here to defend you, Heather. You are my client. You call the shots. I have a way we can break the money loose. Different than the craziness they are pursuing in the Tributary, which is a great idea but will never work.”

“I get it,” said Heather. “You think I’m going to write you a big check.”

“No, Heather,” said Donny, playing a hunch. “I think you’re going to tell me where Slider is.”

34

“Slider’s dead,” said Heather quickly.

“That’s what everybody keeps telling me,” said Donny.

“It’s true,” she said. “And it’s my fault.”

“How’s that?”

“He died trying to rescue me.”

“That’s not what the newspapers said. They said he died trying to arrest you. Got shot by your dad’s bodyguards.”

“That’s what they thought. But he was killed by friendly fire. People from here, assigned to kill him for what the people that run this place call treason.”

“Treason? I thought he was a loyal soldier for the cause.”

“He was. But they said he had gotten too violent. Taken actions that put the community in a bad light.”

“Too violent for this crowd? I thought that was a job requirement.”

“It was, when they needed it. But they don’t want their wild boys in the house anymore.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The old ladies who run the Council. They decided that they need to keep men of fighting age segregated. The most violent of the fighters were expelled. In Slider’s case, he did something that made them decide he needed to be killed.”

“What was that?”

“The last big job he did before they came for me. But I don’t know what it was, or what went down. He couldn’t tell me before he left, and when he got back he was even more secretive about it.”

“How long was he gone that time?”

“About ten days.”

“Do you know who he was working with? Who else was on the team?”

Heather shook her head.

“I suppose your relationship with him was also a secret.”

“Kind of,” she said. “Not something the people he worked with needed to know about. Some of our friends in Houston knew. But it wasn’t exclusive, and we all have pretty open connections in our network.”

“I bet. But you’re telling me this was a special enough connection that he wanted to volunteer for a kidnapping squad to come rescue you from his own bosses.”

She reddened.