“I’d love to get a drink with you,” he said. “But I need to call my wife before I go to bed. She’s going to give birth to our son pretty soon, and I want to remind her to wait until I get there.”

Trudy shrugged and smiled, just as Swann had done.

“Your loss,” she said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

May 8

12:30 a.m. Central European Summer Time (6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 7)

The Baroque Club

Rue du Rhone

Geneva, Switzerland

The night glittered.

The car nosed slowly through the crowded streets of Rue du Rhone—the street level stores, now closed, a paradise of the most famous and desirable brands on Earth. Louis Vuitton was here, and Prada, and Omega watches, and Tiffany jewelers. There were chocolatiers and coffee shops, and all the beautiful people, walking and mingling and laughing in sweaters and scarves wrapped around their necks.

Of course, Elizabeth had visited this street before, but never at night. They were a block from where Lake Geneva emptied into the Rhone River, and she kept catching glimpses of it down alleyways and side streets.

“They know me here,” Rita was saying. “Just stick close, arm in arm. Act naturally, and follow me in. The sea will part for us, and if you act like it’s the most normal thing in the world, we won’t have any problems.”

Elizabeth had already stripped down to her underwear and changed her clothes in front of the driver, who pretended he wasn’t looking, but kept taking glances in the rearview mirror. After that little adventure, following Rita into a club should be a snap.

“They don’t care about our age?” Elizabeth said. She already knew the answer because Rita must have explained it to her on a dozen occasions, but she wanted to hear it one last time. It might help to calm her nerves.

Supposedly, the age required to enter these bars was twenty-one.

Rita shrugged. “Age is for the peasants. We are the elite. We do what we want, and we go where we want. The normal rules do not apply.”

Elizabeth nodded at the truth of this. The idea was disturbing and exciting and troubling and freeing all at once. Millions of people—billions of people!—were leading their normal, average, everyday lives. But Rita was the granddaughter of publishing billionaires. And Elizabeth was the daughter of the President of the United States. Nothing about them was normal, or average.

They were like exotic birds, flying high above the crowds below.

The car pulled up across the street from the club. Elizabeth stared out the window at it. There must have been a hundred people waiting to get inside, all lined up along the wall, separated from the street by a red velvet rope.

“Rita, there’s a lot of…”

Rita put a finger to her lips. “Trust,” she said.