“So, what does all this mean to us?” Myra asked fretfully. “The gala is just two days away.”

Annie drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Let’s look at the worst-case scenario, Myra. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Moss somehow, some way, got his hands on his wife. What do we think he would do? We never discussed that aspect. Lock her up and throw away the key, kill her, what?”

“Good Lord, Annie, I haven’t the slightest idea. What I do know is that we cannot let that happen. Not in a million years.”

Annie was a dog with her favorite bone. “But, Myra, what if it did happen?”

“Then I guess we call the police, the feds, anyone we can think of. What? Do you have an idea?”

“I don’t, that’s the problem. Always remember, what can go wrong will go wrong no matter how hard you try and no matter what you do. Things happen to thwart the best-laid plans. I’m nervous, I admit it.”

“It’s raining out,” Myra said inanely.

“So it is,” Annie said just as inanely.

“Where is everyone?” Myra asked fretfully.

“Probably still sleeping. Even our guests, I assume. We really should go get our nails done, Myra,” Annie said, holding out her hands to show the condition of her nails, which had not been rectified since the day Pearl Barnes interrupted their session at the Beautiful Nails Salon. “If we leave now, we can be the first customers when they open at eight o’clock.”

Myra looked at her fuzzy nails and winced. “Let’s do it.”

Maggie Spritzer met up with Ted, Espinosa, and Dennis for breakfast at a small café in Georgetown. She briefed them on her early-morning phone call to Lincoln Moss and the message she had left for him.

“He’s not going to do the interview so why are we even discussing the matter,” Ted said sourly.

“I think I boxed us into a corner. At the time it seemed like the thing to do.”

“I got a text from Abner on my way here,” Espinosa said. “He’s been monitoring Moss’s accounts and phone usage, and he said he contacted Universal Privacy. That’s a private detective agency Moss has used in the past to try to find his wife. Probably the same agency he sicced on Jane Petrie, too. Might I add, with no known results.”

“How does that help us?” Dennis asked.

“I don’t know, Dennis. I’m just talking to convince myself I’m still alive until our food arrives. I’m starved,” Ted said.

“I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what he’s up to. Now, if we’d been really smart, we would have put a tail on Moss,” Maggie said.

“What do you mean, Maggie?” Dennis asked.