Hendricks groaned. “Well, be sure and tell that to the SWAT team when they get here. I’m still in favor of just going public, huh? Go to the media. Post it all over the Internet. The book. The cap. Once it’s out there, then he’ll have no reason to go after us.”

They’d been over all this in Greensboro. But Hendricks wasn’t the only one who had doubts, and sometimes it just helped to go back over things.

“That won’t work,” Gibson said in unison with Jenn.

“Why not?”

“You were a cop, right?” Gibson asked.

Hendricks didn’t look inclined to admit to it just at the moment.

“Well, there’s what you know, and then there’s what you can prove. And what can we prove? The book doesn’t do anything but ask questions. The hat doesn’t prove Lombard is a pedophile. We go to the Internet, we’re just another paranoid theory among a constellation of wacked-out conspiracy theories. It does us no good.”

Hendricks grudgingly accepted the truth of what Gibson was telling him, but he wasn’t happy.

“Yeah, but this is insanity. You’re actually talking about walking into that hotel. It’s a fortress. And it is guarded by Lombard’s men. You go in there, you’re a dead man.”

“I think you’ve got it backward. That hotel is probably the safest place for me.”

“How you figure that?”

“Have you seen any stories about us on the news?”

“No.”

“Right, because Lombard is playing this one off the books. Secret Service isn’t looking for me. It’s these Cold Harbor guys, and they won’t be anywhere near the hotel.”

“It can’t be done,” Hendricks said.

“It has to be done,” Jenn said. “She’s the only one who will believe us. She’s the only one Lombard can’t silence.”

“If Grace thinks I can tell her something she doesn’t know about Suzanne, then she’ll listen,” Gibson said, hoping the statement didn’t sound as wishful as it felt.

“Well, what if she knew about it? What if she’s just as twisted as her husband?” Jenn had slid back to Hendricks’s side of the argument.

“No, I don’t believe that. I knew her. There is no way that Grace Lombard had a part in it.”

“But what if she’s made her peace with it and likes the prestige and power too much to give it up now? You’ll just be walking into a trap.”

“Maybe she has, but my father always said she was the most grounded person he’d ever met in politics.”

“Jesus,” Hendricks said. “Are you really going to hang your life on a twelve-year-old opinion? By a man who, no offense, kind of fatally misread his boss?”