My work has suffered so badly that everyone at City Hall is engaged in a conspiracy to pretend I’m functional. That’s hard to admit, but if I’m honest, something isn’t quite right with me. My hold on reality is more tenuous than it should be. My sense of control has eroded to the point that I’ve questioned my sanity. But given all I’ve been through . . . perhaps that’s a sane response. Perhaps the only one. Because my family has imploded.

My mother lives in a motel near the Federal Correctional Institution at Pollock, Louisiana, where my father is being held by the FBI (thirty miles behind us now, and thankfully fading farther every minute). I had to withdraw Annie from middle school, and only Mia Burke’s altruistic intervention has prevented her from becoming paralyzed by grief and terror. Mia’s done a lot to hold my head above water also, which isn’t fair to her, but she volunteered, and frankly there’s no one else to lean on.

My cell phone pings beneath the music. It’s lying sideways beside the Audi’s central handbrake. Pinning the steering wheel in position with my left knee, I reach across my lap with my left hand to check the phone without disturbing Annie.

The message reads: U ok? Not getting sleepy, are u?

It’s from Tim Weathers, our bodyguard for the night, tailing us in his Yukon. Actually, the vehicle doesn’t belong to Tim. It’s the property of Vulcan Asset Management, the Dallas-based security firm that employs him.

I’m fine, I type. Girls sleeping.

They need it, he replies.

Apart from Caitlin’s death, this may be the most difficult adaptation of all. We live surrounded by bodyguards. A necessity, of course, everyone agreed. Total security, twenty-four hours a day. And not the oversized guidos you see guarding pop divas and pro athletes, but retired Special Forces soldiers like my friend Daniel Kelly, who’s been missing in Afghanistan for months now. Men who understand the job of protection and have the skills, restraint, and experience to do it right.

The financial burden of maintaining such protection is crushing. Over the past almost two and a half months, security firms have billed me more than a hundred thousand dollars. But I see no alternative. It’s like hiring round-the-clock nurses for an ailing parent: until you have to do it, you have no idea what ceaseless attention really costs. To my relief, Caitlin’s father has paid half the balance of every bill. He offered to pay every cent, but I still have some pride left. I can’t afford this level of expenditure for long, but every time I wonder whether we might be able to relax our vigilance and stem the hemorrhage of cash, John Masters’s words ring in my ears: