“She applied to join us a few months after 9/11,” Carter said. “She’d just finished her Ph.D. She looked interesting on paper, so we brought her in and gave her to the psychiatrists in Personnel. They put her through the wringer and didn’t like what they saw. Too independent-minded, they said. Maybe even a bit too smart for her own good. When we turned her down, she landed at the Phillips.”

“So you’re offering me one of your rejects?”

“The word hardly applies to Sarah Bancroft.” Carter reached into the pocket of his corduroy blazer and handed Gabriel a photograph. Sarah Bancroft was a strikingly beautiful woman, with shoulder-length blond hair, wide cheekbones, and large eyes the color of a cloudless summer sky.

“How old?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Why isn’t she married?”

Carter hesitated a moment.

“Why isn’t she married, Adrian?”

“She had a boyfriend while she was at Harvard, a young lawyer named Ben Callahan. It ended badly.”

“What happened to Ben?”

“He boarded a flight to Los Angeles at Logan Airport on the morning of September 11, 2001.”

Gabriel held out the photograph toward Carter. “Zizi’s not going to be interested in hiring someone touched by 9/11. You brought me here for nothing, Adrian.”

Carter kept his hands on the wheel. “Ben Callahan was a college boyfriend, not a husband. Besides, Sarah never talks about him to anyone. We practically had to beat it out of her. She was afraid Ben’s death would follow her around for the rest of her life, that people would treat her like a widow at age twenty-six. She keeps it very much inside. We did some sniffing around for you this week. No one knows.”

“Zizi’s security hounds are going to do more than sniff around, Adrian. And if they catch one whiff of 9/11, he’s going to run from her as fast as he can.”

“Speaking of Zizi, his house is just ahead.”

Carter slowed to negotiate a bend. A large brick-and-iron security gate appeared on their left. Beyond the gate a long paved drive rose to an enormous faux-chateau mansion overlooking the river. Gabriel looked away as they sped past.

“Zizi will never find out about Ben,” Carter said.

“Are you willing to bet Sarah’s life on that?”

“Meet her, Gabriel. See what you think.”

“I already know what I think. She’s perfect.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“If we make one mistake, Zizi’s going to drop her down a very deep hole. That’s the problem, Adrian.”