IT WAS TOO CLOSE TO MORNING for Kate to bother going home again, so she spent the next couple of hours in her office, stretched out on the leather couch with Buster curled around her feet. Indecision wouldn’t allow her to sleep for more than a few fitful minutes at a time.

By dawn, she’d mapped out what she thought was the best strategy to work in the background and clean up behind her president. Despite Emily’s edict that their best plan of action was no action at all, Kate knew full well that overt inaction was counter to Emily’s natural programming. Her need to be proactive would lure her into activating either the scorched-earth method or at least a modified version of it.

Kate’s plan was to preserve the original evidence, which she believed would prove —even to a doubtful America and beyond —that Dozier had lied to everyone about his holdings.

If Emily was determined to scorch the earth, Kate would resow it with the same crop, essentially making sure she could replace the missing files with the untouched originals. It was ambitious at best, but no more so than Emily’s plan.

But the key to success was getting there first. And to do that, Kate had to find a way to reopen Dozier’s financial records without tipping off Emily or a scandal-hungry press. That meant Kate had to find a way to get the information that didn’t utilize her usual manpower so that absolutely no trail led back to the White House.

Luckily she had an idea or two how to make that happen.

The second step in her plan would be to learn more about Dozier’s will. If his son, Jack, was in line to inherit his father’s properties, Emily would have to convince him to forfeit potential millions. How likely was that? Then again, Jack and Emily had known each other for years. What Jack Marsh might not be willing to do for his estranged father, maybe he’d do for Emily’s sake or at her request.

Until she learned more about Jack Marsh, he would remain an unknown variable in her calculations.

Usually such uncertainties left a bad taste in Kate’s mouth and a rock in her stomach. The only thing that kept her going was the bottom line —that neither of them had realized or had prior knowledge of Dozier’s involvement in Pembrooke. No one did, including a team of trained, independent financial investigators who had failed to uncover any inkling of his involvement.

But would a jaded American public believe their protestations?

She doubted it.

Much too soon, Kate began to hear occasional muffled voices from the hallway outside her office, signifying that the West Wing was starting its day. She rose from her makeshift bed and freshened herself, changing into the spare suit she kept hidden in the armoire. Buster began to sniff the furniture, a sure sign that he needed to relieve himself.

“Not in my office, you don’t,” she warned him. Once he was leashed, they headed outside together, where he examined and rejected every column of the pergola that sat outside her office, forcing her to take him toward the more spacious Rose Garden. After sniffing and subsequently ignoring what seemed to be every bush, he finally picked his target.

While he was busy, Kate heard a tap on the window and saw Emily, framed in one of the Oval Office windows. She crooked her finger and Kate’s stomach began to churn.

Once he’d completed his task, Kate led Buster to the door leading from the garden to the Oval Office, telling herself she was shivering only because it was a chilly morning.

They had hardly stepped into the room before Emily pulled her over to the fireplace, where small flames licked the ceramic logs. “You must be freezing. Here, warm up.”

While Kate rubbed life and feeling back into her hands, Emily squatted down to pat Buster, who responded with his usual declaration of undying love.

“You two need to let me apologize for calling you out last night.” When she glanced up at Kate, a rare look of sadness filled Emily’s eyes.

Or was it simply the lingering signs of her hangover?

“I never felt as alone in my life as I did last night in this big old house. I didn’t think Dozier’s death would have hit me that hard. I really needed the company.” Her sigh was somewhat ragged. “But I sure didn’t need that much wine.”

I tried to distract you from drinking is what Kate wanted to say. But instead, she took the accommodating coward’s way out. “That’s okay.” After a second, she added, “Buster enjoyed getting out of the house.”

That made Emily smile. “Did you like your cookies, buddy?” She rubbed his ears. “We have more.” She rose, walked over to the side table closest to the fireplace, and retrieved a white pastry box tied with a red ribbon. “Here.” She handed it to Kate but addressed her comment to Buster. “In case you get hungry today, little man.”

She turned and faced Kate, the brief flare of amusement fading from her eyes. “Although I was more than a little tipsy last night, I do remember everything we talked about. I’ve spent most of the morning reexamining our conversation. I think I was wrong.”

Kate tried not to betray her inner thoughts.

“We can’t take the chance that no one will look into Dozier’s finances now that he’s dead. We need to find out the truth for ourselves, immediately, then present it to the public.”

Emily’s suggested course of new action caught Kate by surprise. A sudden flare of guilt fired up inside of her, one that condemned her for failing to believe her friend could make the right and moral decision. But another part of Kate whispered in warning that Emily was merely saying what she thought Kate wanted to hear.

Unaware of Kate’s turmoil, Emily blithely continued. “I called Jack a little while ago, and he’s flying in for the funeral. We’ll have a chance to talk to him and figure out how to present our findings.” She paused and pierced Kate with her sharpest eye contact. “Don’t worry. This will work out. I promise. But I need to ask you this —don’t do anything yet. Don’t start delving into Dozier’s records; don’t start investigating how he hid this from us. Let me talk to Jack first. He deserves to know what’s happening before we start digging up Dozier’s sins. I promise we’ll do the right thing.”

She reached for Kate’s hand and squeezed it.

“Promise.”

Four days later, when Kate was introduced to Jack Marsh after the funeral, she’d expected to meet either an irate man, angry to have been pressured into attending his estranged father’s funeral, or a relieved man, glad to embrace the fact that the strained relationship had finally ended.

Instead, he was quiet, polite, and far more forthcoming and circumspect about the family discord than Kate expected. After the service and interment at Arlington, they returned to the White House, where Emily ushered Jack into the Blue Room and offered him one of the chairs nearest the fireplace. Although the sun had shone during the graveside service, the cold air held the usual bite of the last days of February. While plenty of people had attended the services, only a handful had been invited back to the White House. Burl and his wife had been pressed into service, making nice with a trio of Dozier’s remaining contemporaries on the opposite side of the room.

After Emily, Kate, and Jack all got settled in the chairs, Kate tried to hide her surprise when Emily reached forward and grasped the handle of the ornate silver coffeepot sitting on the low table between them. She poured a cup of coffee, offering it to Jack Marsh. The action was uncharacteristically domestic, meaning Emily either was extremely distracted or was working an agenda she’d failed to mention to Kate.

Kate knew she could make book on the latter.

“Where has the time gone?” Emily pondered aloud as she poured a cup for herself and, in the most surprising move of all, a third cup, ostensibly for Kate. However, Kate knew that Emily’s largesse was probably stretched past its limit and that she would be responsible for retrieving the cup herself.

Emily acknowledged Kate’s murmur of thanks with a quick nod and the hint of a wink.

The hidden message?

Don’t get used to this.

Then Emily turned to Jack. “The last time we saw each other was when? Wasn’t it Christmas? Far too many years ago.”

He took a sip, then cradled the cup in both palms as if to warm himself. “I remember that. I’d just finished working a big job in Ecuador the week before.” He colored slightly. “I never did thank you for letting me crash your family’s holiday celebrations.”

She waved away his belated concern. “No thanks necessary, Jack. The way I figure it, you’re practically a Benton.”

He took a bracing sip of coffee. “It certainly seemed like it sometimes.” He graced her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How’s your mother? I got a nice note from her last month telling me that you’d won the election.” He chuckled. “As if I hadn’t heard . . .”

“She’s fine.” Emily added an artful sigh. “You know Mother . . . she still lives in the Dark Ages. She thinks people living in Japan might not have access to the news in America. I’ve tried to explain to her the intricacies of the Internet, satellite news organizations, and such, but it’s simply over her head. Technology is so not her strong suit.” Her laughter had a hollow ring to it. “She’s fried the last three cell phones I’ve given her. In fact, the third one lasted only a week before she completely destroyed it.”

Emily was on a real roll, her mother being her favorite subject of amused ridicule.

“And yet she lives most of her time in France and seems able to have no trouble keeping up with my life here even when she’s over there. Go figure.”

Jack laughed. “Ah, but that’s European elitism for you. She probably thinks Japan is still a quaint little country with odd-looking people making transistor radios.”

Emily took a sip of her coffee and nodded. “Probably so. In any case, she’s definitely stuck in the sixties.” She paused, then added almost wistfully, “I think Mother always resented that I grew up.”

Kate said nothing, but having gotten to know Claire Benton over the years, she thought the assessment was dead-on.

Evidently Jack did too. “I guess it’s hard to consider yourself eternally young when your children are no longer children but have become adults.”

Emily released an almost brittle laugh. “Exactly.” She leaned forward with a gleam of conspiracy in her eyes. “One time —when she was halfway to being totally blitzed —Mother actually admitted that her sense of self-identity took its hardest blow when Hepburn died.” Emily raised a wagging finger and added, “Audrey, not Katharine.

“Mother always used to preen shamelessly when folks said she looked like a young Audrey Hepburn. But now, half the journalists who interview her don’t even know who Audrey Hepburn was.”

A hint of a real grin crossed Jack’s face. “And the other half are probably thinking, ‘An old Audrey Hepburn.’”

“Ouch! Be nice to me or I’ll tell her you said that.” She all but punched him in his arm.

This time, his grin expanded to something much more genuine, reflecting in his eyes. “You always were a rotten little kid.”

Emily brushed off his statement by rolling her eyes and turning to Kate. “Don’t believe him. Jack always was and always will be a big bully.”

“That reminds me.” He turned to Kate, as if suddenly remembering she was there. “I just want to say how much I appreciated all you did for my father. The hospital visit, the funeral arrangements . . . everything.”

“It’s the least we could do,” she said. “Dozier was a great friend, a formidable politician, and an invaluable mentor.” It was no exaggeration when she added, “Dozier was . . . family.” Maybe not her favorite “uncle,” but one nonetheless.

To her surprise, Jack blinked, evidently battling a tear or two as some emotion swelled inside him. He avoided any response or explanation by taking another sip of his coffee and simply nodding.

Emily busied herself by pouring another cup of coffee. Her telltale cough meant she was choking back some emotion of her own. “The old man was the last of his kind, you know. There’s no one left of his generation now.”

Jack glanced beyond Emily’s shoulder at the two old men who were ranting at Burl and Melissa, evidently taking advantage of the opportunity to impart their own particular brand of wisdom to the younger and therefore ignorant generation. The third gentleman had fallen asleep and was starting to snore. Burl still looked accommodating and interested while Melissa was starting to glaze over.

Jack leaned closer. “I can think of one or two that are still kicking around. I’m not too sure about number three.”

Emily gave the trio a dismissive nod. “I’m not talking about deaf and deafer over there. As soon as this is over, we wheel the ancient mariners back to the nursing home and reward them with pudding. But your dad —now he was different. He was an asset to my campaign, not to mention my administration, up to the day he died. Sharp as a tack but lethal like a sword.”

“That’s because you kept him young. You made him feel wanted and valuable.” Jack’s face darkened for a moment. “You were a far better surrogate daughter than I ever was his natural son.”

Kate watched as Emily struggled for the right response. The polite thing would be to decry his statement, but that might be hard to do if Emily actually agreed with him.

Luckily the ancient mariners began to rise from their chairs and wander in their direction, giving Emily an excuse not to respond as their conversation group expanded. To Kate’s relief, the topics lightened somewhat in tone as the informal reception turned more into an impromptu wake with the group recalling some of the lighthearted moments in Dozier’s life.

The mariners, all of whom were Dozier’s old navy buddies, told stories of his very brief military career on the sea —spending much more time telling tales of Dozier at port than of Dozier at war. Evidently one of the old men had known Dozier when he met Jack’s mother, and the topic changed to Dozier’s life as a husband and father.

But as the older generation told their stories, Kate watched Jack Marsh’s reactions. He remained polite, making the appropriate responses when called for, but his laughter was restrained as if he didn’t quite find his father’s younger antics as amusing as everyone else did.

From the conversation, Kate gleaned the fact that Emily and Jack Marsh had spent a considerable portion of their childhood together. Although Emily’s early years had been lived primarily in the limelight, thanks to her family’s public service, somehow Jack Marsh’s role had escaped the notice of the press or the historians.

Kate knew this for a fact because she’d researched Emily’s life from a journalistic point of view in order to anticipate what a nosy reporter might find if he looked hard and dug deep. And at no time had Jack Marsh ever come up in any excavation into the life and times of Emily Benton other than as a person in passing.

Nevertheless, the two of them had a discernible history. Emily told stories and Jack added minor details that betrayed a close friendship that seemed to suddenly end shortly after her high school graduation. Neither of them alluded to either a problem or a person that came between them, but Kate had a feeling by the way they danced around the topic that it had something to do with Dozier himself.

Whatever it was, Jack Marsh had evidently left his home and family shortly after high school to seek his own fortune in places where his last name didn’t come with any appreciable political baggage.

She figured this out not because of the impromptu wake but because she’d researched him thoroughly after realizing that he might be a key player in their problems concerning Dozier’s financial legacy.

Kate decided that Jack had deliberately led his life in polar opposition to Emily, seeking to escape his family’s professional birthright rather than embrace it as she did as the next generation of the Benton dynasty.

While they all talked, Kate stayed in the background as an audience member rather than a participant. That allowed her to watch Emily, a master at work.

Emily danced with certain subjects, deftly avoiding several potholes as she steered them away from Dozier in his role as a father figure and, instead, kept the topics in far safer areas. She didn’t exercise control over the conversation solely because she was president; such ownership came to her naturally, and Jack easily kowtowed to her control as if quite used to it.

Kate wondered if that meant he’d be a more willing informant when it came to the irregularities they needed to uncover and perhaps cover up again.

After the requisite amount of reminiscing, one of Emily’s aides arrived right on prearranged cue to “remind” her of an unavoidable and pressing appointment. Emily rose and apologized for having to return to her duties. “The country isn’t going to run itself, you know.”

Polite laughter ensued. She made the obligatory salutations to the ancient mariners, showed Jack a surprising amount of affection, and then excused herself, heading back to the Oval Office.

Kate, along with Burl and Melissa, walked their tottering guests slowly through the Cross Hall and into the Entrance Hall, flanking them like border collies leading an easily distracted herd. Once the three guests were bundled up in their vehicle to be driven back to the old mariner’s home, she was left to make a somewhat awkward farewell to Jack Marsh.

Before he stepped into his car, he paused, one hand on the door. “According to the doctors, you were with my father when he died.”

She nodded. “We’d been talking and then he had the second attack. I stayed in the room until they decided he was . . .” How do I say this gently? “Until they realized he couldn’t be resuscitated.”

Jack held out his hand. “Then let me offer you a special thank-you. I should have been there, but since I wasn’t, I’m glad he had someone like you. Someone he actually liked and trusted.”

Kate tried to ignore the implication that Dozier neither liked nor trusted his son and, instead, tried to accept the compliment on its surface merits.

“You’re welcome.” She thought about Dozier’s confession, the unanswered questions about his actions. Added to that, there were his occasional misogynistic comments, how he sometimes clung to old ways and outdated language that tended to grate against the nerves of those more politically correct people who worked with him. But for all his flaws —and he had many —Kate still mourned the loss of the man for his own sake.

She glanced up into Jack’s eyes, finding only the barest physical resemblance between father and son. “I really am going to miss Dozier.”

After a beat, Jack released a sigh. “So am I.”

“Are you going to stay in town for a while or are you headed back to Japan immediately?”

His expression suddenly became very reminiscent of his father’s. “No, I’m going to go about thirty feet down the driveway, stop, and back up as if I remembered I left my scarf on the chair. Then you’re taking me to the Oval Office, where you, Emily, and I are having a closed-door meeting to try to figure out how to fix this mess my father created with his finances.”

He paused. “Didn’t you get the memo?”