On her cab ride from the Constitution Inn to Boston’s Beacon Hill’s famed Louisburg Square, Mia read a comment to her blog from a reader who wrote that reducing the time to appeal the death penalty to three years before the fatal injection would certainly reduce the murder rate. He didn’t understand why everyone didn’t realize this. Idiots, all who didn’t agree. Mia grinned, posted her reply thanking the reader, and sat back. She was content to let the readers take over, which they always did. In Milo’s opinion, her lack of making pronouncements was why her blog was so popular.

She opened Kali’s landing page and studied a photo of the woman she was about to interview, Pamela Raines Barrett, Alex Harrington’s fiancée. She was standing beside her desk in her office, her arms crossed over her Armani jacket, looking elegantly thin. Her fine-boned face, while not beautiful, was compelling. Mia scrolled to the Facebook page of Belinda Raines Barrett, Pamela’s younger sister, only nineteen, obviously a latecomer to the family. Bless her gregarious teenage heart, she’d posted a good dozen photos of Alex Harrington. Only one of them was of Alex with her big sister Pamela, but there were at least a dozen recent photos of herself with him, at dances, sailing, at a clambake in Nantucket. Was there infatuation in her pretty brown eyes when they focused on Alex? And she had posted some photos of Alex and Kent together, golfing, swimming, sailing. Whatever Alex did, the young Belinda seemed to want a picture of it. One photo showed Alex and Kent gaming, both absorbed, unaware anyone was taking their picture.

Mia closed down Kali’s landing site and wondered if Kali liked meatloaf.

Her taxi pulled up in front of a town house set in a long row of town houses, all of them much the same, red brick with white trim, all very old. Even in the tail end of winter, on a frigid overcast Wednesday, the neighborhood looked locked in time, a revered row of monuments announcing to the world the social standing of the occupants. For the Bostonian elite, Louisburg Square was the address. Mia paid her Roxbury driver who’d entertained her with nonstop commentary on the fate of the Red Sox this upcoming season.

Pamela had asked to meet Mia here rather than at her office on Newbury Street, and of course Mia knew why. Ms. Pamela wanted to impress her, intimidate her, make her understand she was dealing with power—and she’d best tread carefully, respectfully. Fine by Mia; she’d always wanted to see the inside of one of these testaments to old Boston wealth and, naturally, good breeding.