But even if Conroy had emerged, what did she hope to learn? That he wore red pumps on a Saturday afternoon? That he had a mistress he was stupid enough to screw at his own house? She wasn’t a private detective and snooping had never been her forte. She’d tracked down everything interesting she could find online and that had still amounted to a whole lot of nothing.

Besides, Denkler’s people had access to the same Internet and they’d found nothing either.

She left, shaking her head at herself, annoyed that she was coming up short as she tried to gumshoe it on her own. It made her crazy that somehow this politician had decided to go after the clubs they supplied, turning sexual pleasures into the bogeyman of the election. She walked up Third Avenue, yanking out the ponytail holder in her hair then redoing it.

Maybe she didn’t know how to run counterintelligence like her brother did. But Joy Delivered was her baby too, and she’d find a way to protect her business somehow. Fine, in the grand scheme of things, she wasn’t saving the whales or solving world hunger. She was damn skilled, though, at selling pleasure, because she was a big believer in the power of intimacy, and its potential to do good. The world was a nasty, violent place, and if she could bring about happiness through more orgasms, then that was her small contribution. More pleasure instead of more cruelty. More bliss to blot out the urge to do harm. The world would be a better place if people made love, not war.

That’s why this battle mattered to her.

She headed in the direction of Henry and Marquita’s clubs. For a sliver of a second, she hoped she’d see Conroy, or maybe even his campaign manager, slipping out through the black unmarked door, furtively glancing side to side, trying desperately not to get caught having indulged in that particular predilection on a Saturday afternoon.

She laughed privately at that image. How fitting would that be? Also, how convenient. Life didn’t work that way. She wasn’t going to catch Conroy with his pants down and a whip in his hand. No, that’d be too easy. That’d be the answer out of a TV script. Not real life.

As she walked away, she spotted a campaign flyer resting atop a trashcan. For a better Upper East Side. She stuck out her tongue at it, but then as she boarded a subway to head to her downtown apartment, an idea sparked.

This guy was all about the marketing. Maybe she couldn’t dig up the dirt, but she could go toe to toe with anyone when it came to marketing.

“Are you sure I can’t interest you two in a Long-Distance Lover?”

Julia directed the question to Michelle’s brother and his wife, Jill.

“Because I’ll need it to get through the next few weeks?” Davis asked.

“Of course. Think of it as sublimation for when your wife leaves town for a month,” Julia said, that familiar playful tone in her voice as she handed him a scotch.