Michael Palmer - The First Patient

"Oh, I love children," the woman said. "I look forward to having some, myself, one day."

"I'm sure you will. My name's Suzanne."

Error! Alison realized. Fredericksburg… child care… Suzanne. She had already offered way too much information. As facile as she had become at bending and even mauling the truth, she had lost sight of the fact that if the woman reported on their adventure at A Place for Nails, Griswold had all the resources he needed to assure himself that, in all probability, no such combination existed. Having established that fact, he might be much more alert than he otherwise had reason to be. If nothing else, from now on he would be paying much more attention to his rearview mirror.

"And I am Constanza… Connie."

"Pleased to meet you, Connie. You two are together?"

She nodded toward the girl.

"Yes."

"Is she your sister?"

The smallest cloud passed over the woman's upbeat expression, then vanished.

"No," she said benignly. "Beatriz is… just a friend. I am her…" She paused, searching for the right word. "Tutor."

She hadn't prefaced her explanation with the word actually , but she might as well have.

Alison decided to push things just a bit.

"Hello, Beatriz," she said to the girl. "I'm Suzanne."

The remarkable beauty smiled over at her.

"Hello, pleased to meet you," she said, her English densely accented. Then she lowered her eyes again to focus on her nails. Her response was packaged, as if she had learned it from a tape… or from her tutor.

Hello.

Hello, pleased to meet you.

"Goodness, but she is very beautiful," Alison commented.

"I know," Connie said. "Her English is improving, but she is still embarrassed by it."

"Yours is nearly perfect. Are you both from the same place?"

Keep digging! Alison exhorted herself. Keep searching for some sort of opening you can begin to probe.

"Yes, Mexico," Connie said, "but not the same city."

"Oh, I should have been able to tell. I spent years as a child living with my grandmother in Chihuahua. Beatriz, ¿dónde vas a clase? "

Where do you go to school?

The girl looked up, nonplussed.

"She is tutored at home," Connie said, quickly and somewhat uncomfortably.

The blue-haired lady had repaired to the small drying area, and the pair were nearing the end of their manicures. They might choose to sit in the drying area as well, or they might simply leave. They didn't seem like the type who would risk smudging, but Alison worried that her question about school may have made the tutor willing to take the risk. She could back off and hope to learn more another time through surveillance, or she could push on and risk further alerting the woman or, worse, having her inadvertently alert Griswold. As things were, Alison's manicurist was in overdrive, and she had nearly caught up with the others.

A young mother wheeled her sleeping infant into the salon and entered into an animated discussion with the available manicurist. Alison decided to risk a little more probing.

" ¿Vives con familia? " she asked, hoping that Beatriz might perk up and join the conversation. Do you live with relatives?

"No, well, yes," the woman replied in terse English. "An uncle."

Beatriz stood up at that moment, extending her glistening, wet nails in front of her and turning toward the dryers. She was surprisingly tall, Alison realized-and unselfconsciously regal in her bearing. Her lithe body, highlighted by her designer jeans and tank top, was absolutely arresting. A surpassingly lovely pubescent Mexican girl… a beautiful, young tutor… no relatives in Richmond except a probably bogus uncle… residence in a magnificent old home that almost certainly belonged to some secret incarnation of Treat Griswold. Alison felt queasy as her mind spun through the possibilities.

More information, she thought. Try for more.

"What does her uncle do here in Richmond?" she asked in English.

"Beatriz, just a few minutes of drying, then we leave," Connie said in Spanish, gingerly carrying her cell phone to the seat next to the girl. "He is a salesman," she said over her shoulder to Alison.

"There, nails were ugly, now perfect," the bellicose manicurist announced. "Now, go dry."

The drying stations were three opposite three. Alison took one across from Beatriz and Connie, trying to frame a question that would further elucidate Griswold's relationship to the two of them while also gauging when she could ask it without seeming too curious.

"I just broke up with my boyfriend," she tried, in English. "He turned out to be a real jerk-you know, all he cared about was himself. Your uncle wouldn't by any chance be single, would he?"

Beatriz clearly understood, because she looked down and was unable to fully stifle an impish grin.

"He is single," Connie said, "but he works very hard and has no time for any women… except for his niece."

Again, the sly smile from Beatriz.

Alison's queasiness intensified. Something was going on between Griswold and the girl. The deepest parts of Alison's intuition were telling her so.

"Ah, well," Alison said. "A man wrapped up in his work is not exactly what I had in mind. I want one who will be all wrapped up in me."

It was time to stop. She had been luckier than she could have ever anticipated being. Now she could drive back to D.C. and ponder the big question: Was there any possible connection between what she had learned about the man today and his misuse of the president's inhaler?

The ring of Connie's cell phone-" La Vida Loca "-burst in on Alison's thoughts.

Expertly careful of her nails, Connie answered it, speaking in a polite half whisper that it was still impossible for Alison not to hear.

"Yes?… We are doing fine… She's perfect. Very happy… She chose Scarlet O'Hara, your favorite… Yes, she misses you… Well, we'll be home soon… It is still early. If you wish to go for a ride in the country with her, that would be fine. You know how she loves riding with the top down…"

Again, a restrained smile from Beatriz.

" Dígale que venga a buscarme ," the girl said softly.

Tell him to pick me up.

Shingan.

Blackthorn was registering at the front desk of the airport hotel when he first became aware of the man, standing not far away to his right. It was his heartbeat that first caught Blackthorn's attention-less than forty a minute, with startling power in every contraction. The man was standing virtually motionless, taking eight or ten deep, even breaths each minute.

Power , Blackthorn thought. Power and danger.

Blackthorn picked up his overnight bag and briefcase and headed toward the elevator. The man followed but stopped as Blackthorn knelt and fumbled with the latch on his briefcase until an overweight man and his equally overweight wife moved past him, both breathing heavily from just the simple act of moving.

"How're you doing?" the large man muttered to the dangerous one, who grunted irritably in reply.

The four of them entered the car, with the man taking a position far enough to Blackthorn's right not to make contact. He was five-foot-ten and wore no cologne or other scent. Blackthorn's mind's eye conjured an image of dark hair and dark eyes that were constantly focused on him.

On the third floor, the doors glided open to let the large couple out. Blackthorn waited until the last instant and followed, even though his room was 419-a floor above. The doors closed completely and didn't reopen. Eschewing his cane, Blackthorn followed the couple to where their room was and then passed them and found the staircase at the end of the hall. Perhaps he had misread the man and the situation, he was thinking. His instincts weren't always perfect.