He took them through the three floors, answered their questions about his plans for the place, and withstood their good-natured ribbing about his oh-so-public romance with the pretty lieutenant.

By the time they finally left at eleven, Nick was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He grabbed his coat, rushed down the street and up the ramp to Skip’s house. After a month of being in and out of there, it didn’t occur to him to knock. Bursting into the darkened living room, he found Skip and Celia on the sofa locked in a passionate embrace.

“Oh shit,” Nick muttered through his mortification. “Sorry.”

Like a teenager who’d just been caught in a clutch with her boyfriend, Celia scrambled off Skip’s lap and pressed her hand to her swollen lips. Skip’s empty wheelchair sat next to the sofa where he was propped into the corner with pillows under his arms. Clearly, they had given this arrangement some serious thought, and Nick was horrified to have interrupted them.

“I’ll, ah, just go up to see Sam.”

“She’s not here,” Celia said. “We thought she was with you. At your dinner party for the justice.”

“She was. Earlier. But we had an, um, a thing.”

“A fight,” Skip said, his sharp eyes trained on Nick.

“Sort of.” Nick pushed a frustrated hand through his hair. “Where do you think she’d be?”

“How upset was she?” Skip asked.

“Pretty upset.”

“Lincoln.”

“Excuse me?”

“She goes to see Lincoln when she’s upset or needs to think.”

“As in the monument?”

“One and the same.”

“At eleven at night?” Nick asked, incredulous.

“She carries a gun. The dark doesn’t faze her.”

“All right. I’ll check there. Thanks for the info.”

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing!”

“It wasn’t nothing if she’s gone to see Mr. Lincoln.”

“It’s nothing we can’t work out,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

“Go find her, Nick,” Celia said, sending a pointed glance at Skip.

“Sorry again for the interruption,” Nick said on his way out the door. He jogged down Ninth Street, cut through Eastern Market and hailed a cab on East Capitol.

“Lincoln Memorial,” he told the cabbie.

“Not much happening there this time of night,” the driver said, no doubt thinking he’d picked up a misguided tourist.

“I know,” Nick replied in a clipped tone that discouraged further conversation. They arrived ten minutes later. Nick paid the driver, emerged from the car and took off jogging toward the lighted memorial.

“Help you, sir?” a park ranger said as Nick headed for the marble stairs.