Ron Reisner was in the news again, though not on the front page. The sod on the soccer fields, laid a month earlier, had all turned brown and died. Reisner’s legal team said that the great man had no comment. The accompanying picture must have been provided by the publicity department for LBC as it showed Reisner in a one-armed buddy hug with the current governor, together showing more smiling white teeth than the C-list red carpet at the SAG Awards. Ted had to admit, the man did not look like someone who bribed public officials; was alleged to have defrauded subcontractors, tenants, and investors; and was also quite likely a party to attempted murder for hire.

Passing through the electronic door, which swept open Star Trek fashion at his approach, Ted felt a rush of conflicting emotions. The events of the long night two days previous rushed back at him. His mind had been busy whitewashing fears, a survival mechanism carried over from years of rewriting memories of an abusive alcoholic father. If you don’t think about the really bad things, it’s like they didn’t happen. Almost like.

“Are you all right?” the silver-haired volunteer at the front desk stage-whispered to him as he stood in the entryway, not sure of what he expected to find when he made it to the ICU. Was Kenzie there? If they had moved her, was that a good sign? Suppose she wasn’t responding to treatment; would they take her off life support? Had they already? He should have called first. Was bad news easier to take when it came over the phone?

The flip side of the whitewasher. The morbid gloomsayer. Now he was thinking of death.

“Sir?” She sounded concerned for him but conveyed in that single syllable that he was behaving strangely.

“Fine.” He nearly strangled on the word. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Is McKenzie Zielinski still in ICU?”

Pleased at having something to do, she smiled and tapped away at the computer before her. “Yes, indeed,” she said brightly. Printing out a pass, she gave him detailed, and unnecessary, instructions on how to find the elevator. The sign over her head read elevator in eight-inch letters followed by a red arrow.

It wasn’t until he was riding in the car, each floor announced with an electronic chime at a dirgelike tempo, that another fear, lesser but immediate, bubbled up in the cauldron of his mind.

The chances of running into Kenzie’s father at her bedside were rapidly approaching 100 percent. Their first meeting had been a disaster. The man might see him this time and scream for security guards.

The elevator arrived at his destination before Ted had decided on the appropriate opening words.