But it wasn’t just Hank’s campaign or her own reserve that made her cautious—it was Hank himself. He was a Massachusetts Callahan, the current most visible member of a visible family of dedicated men and women who were expected to do their share in the military, in public service and in business. Hank had left the air force two years ago as a major, a helicopter pilot who’d flown countless search-and-rescue missions: on his last mission, he and a team of pararescuers had performed the dangerous high seas recovery of five fishermen whose boat had capsized. It had put his picture on the front pages of newspapers across the country. While emergency operations conducted in conjunction with civilian agencies sometimes hit the press, his many combat search-and-rescues hadn’t received such coverage—Antonia had learned that the military didn’t necessarily publicize when and how it went after aircrews downed behind enemy lines.

Hank would come to her rescue in a heartbeat.

And not just because he was trained to rescue people.

He lost his family ten years ago when his wife and young daughter were killed in a car accident while he was serving overseas. It still haunted him—everyone knew it, could see it. He wasn’t even on the continent when the accident happened, a head-on collision with a car driving on the wrong side of the interstate. The other driver was a woman in her mid-fifties who’d had a stroke. Brittany Callahan, three, was killed instantly. Her mother, Lisa, thirty, never regained consciousness and died in the hospital three hours later. Hank wasn’t with them—it wasn’t possible for him to have been with them. But he didn’t look at it that way, at least not emotionally, and probably never would, no matter how much he’d come to accept that his wife and daughter were gone.

No, Antonia thought, making her way to their table. She couldn’t just think she might have a stalker or some weirdo trying to get under her skin. She had to be certain before she breathed a word of her fears to anyone—even Hank. Maybe even especially Hank.

* * *

Robert Prancer peered through the restaurant window. The bitch doctor was sitting across a small, candlelit table, drinking wine and having dinner with the wannabe senator.

Didn’t she know?

Robert had to struggle to keep from screaming into the window and drawing attention to himself. Damn it, didn’t she know what she was doing to him? Seeing her with another man. Knowing she didn’t care about him. That all his fantasies were just that. Fantasies. Delusions.