The weeks flew by. Jake hardly saw Glynis; she was grimly trying to track down Dr. Ernest McGruder. Apparently he no longer lived in Vernon, not even in the state. He’d been a general practitioner, not an oncologist, and had retired a few months earlier to Florida.

As spring approached, Tomlinson’s primary campaign swung into high gear. All the local radio stations were saturated with spot ads for him, as were the TV stations. Money talks, Jake thought, as Tomlinson pulled steadily ahead in the polls. Tomlinson’s father talked grimly about how much this campaign was costing him, but Jake knew that the family money was augmented heavily by contributions from the family’s wealthy friends. Amy complained that the mining and utilities industries “aren’t putting their money where their mouths are,” but Jake thought that finances were the least of Tomlinson’s worries.

The MHD concept was all but lost in the candidate’s new emphasis on women’s rights, although Tomlinson did hammer on the point that the best way to keep taxes low was to create more jobs in the state.

Jake saw plenty of Amy Wexler, but always with Tomlinson or others. There were a couple of occasions when he might have asked her to bed, but he found that he couldn’t. I’m not into sharing, he told himself. That didn’t help much during the long nights of late winter, alone in his apartment or some dingy motel on the campaign trail.

Harmon Dant had carved out an impressive challenge at first, but as February gave way to March and the April primary elections edged nearer, Tomlinson’s numbers climbed steadily. The analysts that Tomlinson’s father had hired claimed that Dant had a solid base among the far-right segment of the party, but Tomlinson was holding his own within the party and drawing most of the independents to him.

“It’s the women,” Amy crowed. “Keep smiling at them, Franklin. They’ll win this election for you.”

Jake didn’t know what was happening between Glynis and Tim Younger, but the long-duration tests at the big rig were gradually progressing. Seven hours without stopping. Then fifteen. Twenty-eight. Forty.

It was the last day of March when Jake returned to his office after his afternoon class just as his phone began to ring.

It was Amy. “Can you come with us to the big rig tomorrow afternoon?” Her voice sounded excited.

“What’s happening?”

“Franklin’s going to show the generator to Francis X. O’Brien!”

His brows nettling slightly, Jake asked, “Who’s Francis X. O’Brien?”

“He’s merely the chairman of the National Association of Electric Utilities,” Amy said, as if she were pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

“So they’ve agreed to come out for MHD.”