“Oh,” Elizabeth said. She sounded disappointed, her voice tinged with regret at missing out on an event that she was anticipating with salacious delight. She quickly recovered and resumed being businesslike. “If that’s the case, make sure you collect some list of his assets and where to track them.”

“Make sure?”

As if I hadn’t said a word, she continued on into a lecture, “That’s more than half the battle, the way these husbands hide their money. I’d say it should be against the law, but it already is, and it doesn’t seem to matter. It’s an invidious and insidious corruption. That’s what we’re fighting.”

“The girl,” I said, referring to Allison. “I brought her.”

“I thought you might.”

“It was for our protection and hers. Keep her away from anyone who might ask questions. Or for her getting bored and reckless, for that matter. It turns out she’s helping. I want money for her.”

“How much?”

“Minimum seven, even if we can’t make it work. Maximum,” I impulsively put a cushion on it, “say fifty.” I think it was the private jet that prompted me. We all have to find ways to say how much we care.

“Are you going to get them out?”

“As things stand now, no.”

“Damn it. Why not?”

“Because he has four security people. Two of them, at least, I’m sure are Spetsnaz, Russian special forces. I’m no match for them. Neither is Allison. Even if we were, this is Austria. They don’t have murders and they have lots of police.”

“I see,” she said, sounding as if she thought it was something she definitely shouldn’t have to see, like Queen Victoria stumbling across Prince Albert fornicating with a page in a water closet.

—

After that I called Caroline Sunshine, the woman I’d hired to come in twice a day for the cats. “They are fine,” she said. “But Huba is scary. He sits and stares at me. I tried to be nice to him, but if I get close he disappears. Then he finds a new place and stares. I managed to pet him once when he was eating. Scotty is much nicer. Not as friendly as a regular cat, but not as spooky as Huba. Oh, yes, they killed two mice today. Outside, not inside. They left them at the front door, which I thought was good.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

PLAN—PART II

Wednesday [is]…The Mouseketeers Anything Can Happen Day.

THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB, WORDS AND MUSIC BY JIMMY DODD

PLANS MEET REALITIES. PLANS FAIL. Plans are reinvented. Resurrected. It’s not all up to us.

Kaylee and Allison, Yvetta and Stephan, their skiführer, stopped for lunch at Der Wolfe, a mountain restaurant. It’s a new place, all wood, but so spare and clean it’s almost a satire on Scandinavian design. The views are magnificent. The food is good and costly.