Slowly, Glynis got to her feet. She pulled her coat off the back of the chair, then said, “I had expected better of you, Jake.”

He got up from his chair, too. “Tomlinson won’t go public about it,” he repeated. But it sounded lame, he knew.

“I hope you’re right. I hope you’re not going to ruin the professor just to score a political point.”

Standing, Jake said, “You’re forgetting the real goal here, Glynis. I want the MHD program to succeed. I want Tim to be a success.”

“Over Sinclair’s dead body,” she said coldly.

Jake shook his head, thinking, If there’s going to be any dead body around here, chances are pretty good it’ll be mine.

Cardwell Residence

CARDWELL RESIDENCE

As soon as Glynis left his office, Jake phoned Cardwell.

“I have news about Sinclair,” he said into the phone.

Lev didn’t answer for a heartbeat. Then he asked, “What is it?”

Glancing at the twilight shadows engulfing the campus, Jake said, “Maybe we’d better talk face-to-face.”

“That bad?”

“It’s … complicated.”

Cardwell’s voice sounded strangely flat. “Alice and I have a dinner engagement at seven o’clock. Why don’t you come over to the house for a beer, around five thirty?”

Jake said, “I’ll be there.”

Cardwell met him at the front door of his little doll’s house, in a tuxedo complete with black bow tie, although his jacket was off and Jake could see the fire-engine red suspenders he was wearing.

He led Jake to the tiny room tucked beneath the stairs that led up to the second floor. Jake had always suspected that the space had originally been a closet, but Lev had turned it into a compact little study for himself, with a minuscule desk, the flat screen of a computer on the wall beneath the slanted ceiling, and even a narrow set of bookshelves on the one full-height wall. With the two of them sitting knee to knee, Jake felt as if he were in the captain’s cabin on a submarine. The compartment felt stuffy with the door tightly closed. The promised beers were nowhere in sight.

“Gambling addiction,” Cardwell muttered. “Poor woman.”

“Apparently she went through a lot of their money. Senator Leeds has helped Sinclair financially—enough to control the professor.”

His owl-eyed face wrinkled with concern, Cardwell asked, “Hasn’t he gotten her some professional help?”

“I don’t know. If he has, it isn’t working. She trotted me out to the casino on the reservation as soon as I arrived at her house.”

“And the casino manager wouldn’t let her play?”

Jake nodded. “They’ve got the whole town staked out, Lev. She’s like a prisoner up there.”

“Poor woman,” Cardwell repeated.

Jake got to his feet carefully, his hair brushing the slanting ceiling. “So now I’ve got to tell Tomlinson as soon as he gets back—”