WES KINGSBURY HAD SAID the same exact words to Kate, only Wes’s voice reflected both amusement and exasperation. In Nick’s case, the words held more wariness than anything else.

Kate dove headfirst into her tale, telling him every gory moment.

“To cap it off, Emily managed to make a copy of my file without my knowledge. It detailed all the proof I had —which was damning —and she used that information to send him a threat of her own.”

Nick’s whistle was one of universal sympathy. “Man, oh man. . . . How did she get the file to make a copy? Bribe your investigators?”

“No.” She drew a deep breath. “This is the point where I have to choose which person to believe. I’d refused to tell Emily any particulars concerning Talbot’s problem because I knew she’d be tempted to go after him with both barrels blazing. But we both know how mudslinging can backfire on you. So she promised to respect my decision to keep the evidence secret and agreed to not pry into the details, as long as I took care of the problem.”

Nick crossed his arms. “At least she said she wouldn’t pry.”

“Yeah. That’s the problem.” Kate nodded. “That night, only a few hours later, someone sneaked into my hotel room, stole and copied the evidence, and returned the originals without me realizing it. I only learned about it weeks after the fact.”

“Your very own Bentongate.” He made a face. “I know that had to hurt. So who broke in? More importantly, did Emily send him?”

Kate almost corrected him by saying, “Her, not him” but decided that exposing Maia Bari’s role wasn’t necessary to tell the story and get the much-needed advice.

“That’s one of the big questions. Emily says no, she sent nobody. The thief says yes, that it was a direct request from Emily.”

“Hmm. How would the thief know the files existed in the first place or that you had them with you unless Emily told him?”

“She certainly could have overheard Emily and me talking about the situation. She’s smart. And she was around at the critical times.” Kate realized she’d slipped up and identified Maia’s gender. Maybe Nick hadn’t noticed. She continued. “The big problem is that when armed with the evidence —whether by design or by happenstance —Emily broke her word to me. She did exactly what I was afraid she’d do: she used that knowledge against Talbot. No finesse. No subtlety. She went straight for the kill —politically.”

He remained quiet for a moment, contemplating Kate’s story. Finally he spoke. “Did you confront M? Did she admit to it?”

“Yes, I confronted her. And she admitted to having sent Talbot a threat. And then she . . .” Kate hesitated. Somehow, admitting to Emily’s emotional breakdown seemed a betrayal of sorts.

Nick crossed his arms, obviously anticipating something bad. “What’d she do?” he prompted with a sigh of exasperation. “Said it was too late now? water under the bridge?”

Kate remembered the rare look of anguish on her friend’s face. The tears. The voice that had cracked as Emily spoke. It had been honest emotion. It had to be. . . .

Kate had a hard time controlling her own emotion. “Emily broke down. She cried like her heart was breaking.” Kate looked up to see his disbelief melt into astonishment. “She admitted that she’d succumbed to temptation and made the wrong decision. She . . . she asked for my forgiveness.”

He stared at Kate, obviously stunned by the revelation. “Our Emily?” His face flushed. “I mean your Emily. She’s not been mine for . . . years. She cried . . . real tears? not the usual Benton crocodile variety?”

“Yeah. Real tears.” She didn’t want to admit she’d never seen anything but the fake ones before from Emily and those had been rare at best. “It was real. I saw gut-wrenchingly honest emotion on her part.”

He stretched forward to warm his hands in the heat from the fireplace. “I have to admit . . . I’ve never thought she was capable of something like that. She didn’t cry when I asked her to marry me, she didn’t cry during the wedding, and she sure as heck didn’t cry when we got divorced. She stuck with getting even.”

“I know.” Kate had been present for all those times and more. There had been occasions when Emily conjured up convenient tears for her public persona, but Kate had never seen her cry behind private doors.

At least not since Emily’s father died, taking an assassin’s bullet meant for another president.

Not until now.

Doubt flickered in Nick’s eyes. “And she asked for forgiveness? She used those exact words?”

Kate nodded. “I gave it to her. But I haven’t agreed to take the chief of staff job yet. She’s going crazy waiting for my answer.”

They sat in silence, words failing them both. They listened instead to the soothing pop and crackle of the fireplace.

Finally Nick spoke quietly. “What are you going to do?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. I can understand why she was tempted to do what she did. But I don’t know if I can work in her administration. I don’t know if I can risk it happening again. I’ll never be able to forget what happened. What if she’s tempted again?”

“It’s going to happen. Power’s like that. The more you have, the more temptation is scattered along your path.” He pushed his chair back, left the warm fireplace, and walked to the window overlooking the street. “Trust me, I know a lot about temptation. It was tempting for me to pick up a bottle of wine to go with dinner tonight. Harmless, right? And if I remembered you weren’t much of a drinker, then that meant more for me. Temptation,” he repeated, still staring out the window. “I struggle with it every day.”

He braced one hand against the windowframe. “When I got into AA, one of the important steps I had to take was to take ownership of what I’d done —to admit that I’d hurt a lot of people, especially those I loved, and to make amends to them if possible. I tried to call Emily, but you know she wouldn’t give me the time of day. Of course, I understood her reluctance.” He corrected himself. “Her animosity.” He turned back toward Kate but avoided eye contact by pretending to study something in the dancing flames. “So I wrote her a long letter, owned up to all my bad behavior, and sincerely apologized.”

His voice went flat. “Her response was classic Benton. She sent me a bottle of bourbon and said if I ever got in her way again, caused her another minute of concern, she’d make sure this bottle was my last one.” He managed a hollow laugh. “The woman always had a way of coming up with the perfect threat. The queen of double meanings, one masking the other.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean —” Kate stopped. What was she sure of?

“We’re talking about a Benton here. As long as you ride along with them, you’re fine. The moment you get out of the car and stand in their way, you discover you weren’t standing in front of a limousine but a steamroller. And you’re no match for it.”

He turned away from the fireplace, obviously trying to gloss over his brief emotional moment by hiding his face in the shadows. “So what did she do to Talbot? Threaten to splash his guilt in the headlines of every newspaper in the world with accompanying eight-by-ten glossies of the bloody evidence?”

“No.” Kate had a hard time finding her voice. “No, she sent him a reminder —the date of his college alumni meeting. And a packet of copies of the evidence.”

Although Nick stood with his back to the fireplace, he shivered. “Wow. That was more restrained than I would have expected. I thought she’d at least make it look like it came from the girl he murdered. Is there any way he can trace that back to her?” Before Kate could answer, he waved his hand in dismissal and flopped down into the other chair. “Of course not. Emily’s callous, not careless.”

His brow knit in concentration; then suddenly his eyes widened in revelation. “I doubt Talbot even knew it came from her. He probably figured it was a reminder from you.”

The concept took Kate by surprise, making her breath catch in her throat. “You know, I hadn’t thought of it like that,” she admitted after swallowing hard. “I bet she did just that.”

Silence filled the room as he seemed lost in conjecture and Kate’s mind filled with the maelstrom of indecision and worry. If Talbot thought the threat came from her, would he try to retaliate? Surely not. But what if . . .

Finally Nick broke the silence.

“But she apologized to you,” he added as if needing to be reassured once more. “A real, honest apology. Not her usual halfhearted, get-you-off-her-back excuse.”

“Yeah.” Kate nodded, relieved to turn her thoughts from Talbot back to Emily. “Absolutely authentic.”

“Well . . . if it’s any consolation, I don’t think she’s ever apologized to anyone. Ever. I think . . . I think maybe it’s a good start.”

“A start to what?”

“Maybe this is what we’ve both been looking for. For Emily to take that first voluntary step on the path to enlightenment. Maybe even a closer walk with God. That walk starts with humility —something Emily has never been good at. Maybe this will open her up to Christ’s influence.”

It was an optimism Kate wanted to share but couldn’t quite fathom. “Asking forgiveness from me is nothing like asking forgiveness from God.”

“Of course not, but it’s an important first step. She has to learn to answer to someone besides herself. Maybe this will help her realize she has to place her faith in a higher authority. It’s something I knew in my heart when I was growing up, lost once I got into politics, but then relearned when I joined AA.” His smile was strained. “Too bad there’s not a Politicians Anonymous.”

“Then you think I ought to stay in her administration.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“I didn’t say that. You have to do what you think is right, go where God leads you, which may be someplace other than —”

The phone rang. Kate sighed and excused herself to the kitchen, where she read the caller ID —No data.

“Hello?”

“Finally. I wondered when you’d get home.”

She didn’t recognize the male voice. “Who is this?” she challenged.

“You don’t know me. But I worked for Chuck Talbot.”

She wondered if the better part of valor was simply hanging up. “Why are you calling me?”

“Because I wanted you to realize someone knows what you did. I know.”

Valor was about to win. “I’m going to hang up now. Don’t call me again.”

“Wait, wait! I’m not trying to threaten you,” he said quickly. “I’m trying to thank you.”

Kate recognized the trick. If she accepted his “thanks,” then she was confirming her actions and her role in playing the “who has the better blackmail” game.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Plausible deniability. In any case, you need to know that many of us agree that what Ms. Benton did with the bridge is nothing compared to Talbot’s crimes.”

Another trap. Or another blackmail attempt? In either case, her best response was to continue her denial.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about, and quite frankly, I don’t care. Don’t call back.”

“But —”

She disconnected the call.

“Telemarketer?”

“No.” Kate looked down and saw that she was still clutching the phone in a near death grip. It took much of her self-control to replace it gently in the cradle rather than slam it.

“Kate?”

Vaguely she heard Nick’s voice above the rushing of blood in her ears. But it wasn’t until he touched her shoulder that she responded.

“That was someone from Chuck Talbot’s campaign staff. At least, that’s what he implied.”

“Upchuck still trying to pull strings?”

“I don’t know.” She finally turned away from the phone and faced Nick, who stood next to her at the kitchen counter. “He called to thank me for stopping Chuck.”

“That’s . . . unlikely.”

“Exactly. I think he was either fishing for more information or he already knows the details and this was a veiled threat. I really don’t think it was the simple thanks it appeared to be.”

Nick leaned against the counter, his arms crossed. “What would Talbot have to gain? The election is over, but he still has a career in politics. Word is he’ll probably get reelected as the governor of Ohio.”

“Maybe it’s not Talbot but simply someone on his staff who wants to leverage what he knows.”

Nick nodded. “That’s a possibility. Unfortunately he’s probably a month too late. You and I both know that as soon as Emily learned about the blackmail attempt, she covered her trail, had all the records expunged, removed every last shred of proof that connected any Benton to that highway project. I’m just surprised she went into the campaign without doing that first.”

“True. So either this was a seriously stupid fishing expedition or . . .”

Nick finished her thought. “Or someone —besides me —in the Talbot camp had a conscience and is now dealing with his remorse.”

“Maybe.” She glanced at the kitchen table, covered in white take-out boxes, many still full. “Did you get any fortune cookies?”

“Of course.” Nick’s infectious laughter was another of his attractive qualities. “What’s Chinese food without fortune cookies?” He rustled around in one of the bags and produced a double handful of cellophane-wrapped cookies. “They must have thought I was feeding an army. Take your pick.”

As Kate reached to select one package, the phone rang again.

“I’m not answering it,” she said quickly.

“Want me to?”

“No, I’ll just let the machine pick it up. We’ll hear the message and even record it.”

“Maybe I can identify his voice.”

They both stared expectantly at the machine, but Kate never expected to hear Emily’s voice instead.

“It’s me. Listen, I’m not trying to rush you, but —”

Kate had only two courses of action —answer the phone or find the control on the answering machine to lower the volume so neither she nor Nick could hear the rest of the call. She fumbled, trying to find the control.

Emily’s voice continued to boom. “Something else came up the other day and I wanted to mention it now. Conrad Schertz called me yesterday —unofficially of course —wondering if I could recommend anybody with experience in petroleum law.”

Kate glanced at Nick, who had dropped any pretense of not listening to his ex-wife’s voice. “Conrad Schertz is the guy who offered me the position,” he whispered to her, as if Emily might overhear.

Kate pulled her hand back, allowing them to continue to hear the message as it recorded.

“Con didn’t say what firm he was hiring for, and I didn’t ask. It’s safer to not know these things. Anyway, I know it sounds weird, but I mentioned Nick.”

He hung his head. “Here it comes. So long, job offer.”

Kate reached again to cut off the speaker, but something told her to leave it on.

“Okay, okay, I know. Bad blood and all that, but you made me take a second look at him, especially in light of all this big stink with Talbot. Nick helped us, so it seems right that we do something to return the favor. He does seem to have straightened himself out, and even I have to admit he has the right background for the oil lobby —if indeed that’s what Con’s looking for. So maybe I need to get my head examined, but I recommended Nick for the position.

“But here’s the thing.” Emily lowered her voice. “I told Schertz that the recommendation couldn’t come from me —it needed to come from you. There’s no way that Nick would believe I’d do this for him. Not after our commitment to open and everlasting animosity. But I do believe in paying my debts, and I probably owe him big-time for alerting us to Talbot’s plans. But if you ever tell him that, I’ll deny it. I’ll go back to loathing the very air he breathes. Give me a call when you get in. We need to talk.” She hung up.

When Kate turned, Nick’s mouth hung open in total shock. Finally he spoke. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself. She really is turning over a new leaf. I can’t imagine what it took for Emily to do that.”

“M-me either,” Kate stammered.

“And here I thought I’d gotten the offer because of my credentials, my ability, and my shining personality.”

“You did. Even Emily said so. She had to concede to your credentials and ability.”

He dropped back into his chair, obviously deflated. “So, what do I do? Do I take the job? I thought I went into the job with Talbot with my eyes open, and look how bad that went.”

“I don’t think this is the same sort of situation.”

He contemplated the fortune cookie he still had clutched in his palm. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just crack open a cookie and get an answer?”

“Maybe this is your answer.” Kate nodded toward the answering machine. “You have a lot more information now about the job than you did before.”

“Yeah. And even if I’m not sure what to do, maybe this is the burning bush you need when it comes to working with Emily.” His face lightened perceptibly. “Look what you’ve done. Not only did you prick her conscience and cause her to show real remorse for what she did to you, but it brought about this . . . this change in attitude toward me.” He grinned and corrected himself. “Okay, this momentary change in attitude toward me. Can you imagine in your wildest dreams that she’d ever do something like that?”

“No.”

“I’m not telling you what to do, but at least you need to put this one in the plus column. If you managed to pull off both of those things with your influence, imagine what you can do now that she’s president. . . . You may be able to help her achieve great things.”

Was this the sign she’d been waiting for? Kate closed her eyes, sending up a quick prayer for guidance. A sudden calmness settled over her, making her churning stomach settle and her racing heart slow down.

“I trust you and you trust me, right?”

He answered her without hesitation. “Yes.”

“Then believe me when I say I think Emily was being honest about repaying you. I also believe she needs me as her chief of staff to guide her. Why don’t we both take these job offers and find out what we can do to shape history, together? You watch my back. I’ll watch yours. And I’ll be in a position to make sure there are no strings to pull you when Emily needs something.”

He took a deep breath. “You got a deal.”