Our lawyer was downing a huge salad, garlic bread, and veal ravioli, while Tolliver and I were having soup and salad on a smaller scale. I was watching Art chew hunks of bread and trying to remember my CPR lessons. Art was explaining what we should expect.

"You'll probably need to produce a record of your travels during the time since you met the Morgensterns," Art said.

I glanced at Tolliver and he nodded. We were covered on all that. During the years we'd been traveling, Tolliver and I had learned to keep every single receipt, every single credit card slip, every single piece of paper that crossed our paths. This past year, we'd been especially diligent. We had a cheap accordion file that was always on hand in the back seat of the car, and the laptop; we kept good records. We sent off regular packets to our accountant, Sandy Dierdoff, who was based in St. Louis. She was a broadly curvy blonde in her forties. "Crap," I said. She'd only raised her eyebrows and given a bark of laughter when we'd explained what we did for a living. She'd seemed to enjoy our unusual lifestyle. In fact, she'd given us more good advice in our meetings with her than Art had ever even thought of sharing. Sandy had already emailed us about making our annual appointment; fall was fast turning into winter.

I was thinking about Sandy, and by extension our apartment in St. Louis, while I said goodbye to Art. We saw him leave with a mutual feeling of relief. Art was kind of proud of having us as clients, as if we were show business people; but at the same time, he wasn't at his easiest or most relaxed when he was alone with us.

After he left, and the staff had removed the lunch things, I asked Tolliver if he thought we could go out for a walk. I still hadn't forgiven Tolliver his huge error in judgment, but I was willing to put it on the back burner until I'd calmed down. A good walk might restore our sense of companionship.

Tolliver was shaking his head before the sentence even got out of my mouth. "We ran this morning in the gym," he reminded me. "I know you don't want to be cooped up in this hotel, but if we go anywhere, someone'll spot us and want a statement."

I called down to the front desk to ask if there were still reporters waiting outside the hotel. The deskman replied that he couldn't be sure, but that he suspected some of the people loitering in the coffee shop across the street were members of the press. I hung up.