She flicked the “stop” button on her dictaphone and put it down, shuddering. It made a frightening amount of sense. I am sitting on a news story that makes the attack on the World Trade Center look like a five-minute wonder, she realized with a sinking feeling. No, I am sitting in the middle of the story. What am I going to do?

At that exact moment the telephone out in her reception room rang.

Old habits died hard, and Miriam was out of the bathroom in seconds with the finely honed reflexes of a journalist with an editor on the line. She picked the phone up before she realized there were no buttons, nothing to indicate it could dial an outside line. “Yes?”

“Miriam?”

She froze, heart sinking. “Roland,” she said distantly.

“You locked your door and sent your maids away. I wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

“‘All right.’” She considered her next words carefully. “I’m not all right, Roland. I looked in the suitcase. The other one, the one waiting in the post room.” Her chest felt tight. He’d lied to her: but on the other hand, she’d been holding more than a little back herself—

A pause. “I know. It was a test. The only question was which one you’d open. I don’t know if it makes any difference, but I was ordered to give you the opportunity. To figure it all out for yourself. ‘Give her enough rope’ were his exact words. So now you know.”

“Know what?” she said flatly. “That he’s an extremely devious conspirator or about the family’s dirty little secret?”

“Both.” Roland waited for her to reply.

“I feel used,” she said calmly. “I am also extremely pissed off. In fact, I’m still working out how I feel about everything. It’s not the drugs, exactly: I don’t think I’ve got any illusions about that side of things. I studied enough pharmacology to know the difference between propaganda and reality, and I saw enough shit in med school from ODs and drunk drivers and people coughing up lung cancers to know you get the same results whether the drug’s illegal or not. But the manipulative side of it—there’s a movie on the other side called The Godfather. Have you ever seen it?”