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what he was going to say to Oliver. If Emma had been alone Adam might have drawn her into the restaurant and demanded that she treat him better. He would probably tell her about Mrs. Fallingbrooke’s note. Why he couldn’t make his excuses to Oliver while Emma was standing there made no sense, except that now she was part of this. What was this need to make her his confidante? Would she even want to be included? She had probably been going somewhere else when she saw Oliver. A quick hello-goodbye, see you back at the ranch, was all that need happen. Then Adam could give his regrets regarding lunch to Oliver, the old sad-sack, stuffed-shirt-in-training. With heart tripping and lungs in his throat, Adam would set off to find the address written on the old woman’s stationery, which had in its letterhead a nude bathing under
a waterfall.
    Close enough now to see their expressions, he understood that this was no chance meeting. Oliver probably always looked this serious, but Emma, glancing at her watch and shifting her shoulder strap again, was grim and fidgety. Her hands were working at the clasp of her purse when she saw him. Relief and impatience combined in her face. The hands kept making furtive movements with the purse as she spoke.
    She told him what she had told Oliver, which was that they had to cut their fieldwork short and return to the hotel. Something urgent had come up. There was going to be a press conference.
    â€œDid you have a good time last night?”
    â€œDidn’t you hear what I said?”
    â€œI asked an innocent question.”
    â€œWe should be heading back,” said Oliver.
    â€œI’ll meet you both there. I have something to do first. It won’t take me—”
    â€œYes, I had a great time, as a matter of fact. Stewart is so talented. Do you want to know what we did? Oliver, hold up a sec.”
    â€œNo, I really do not.”
    â€œAdam,” she said, “you have to come back to the hotel now.”
    â€œI can get the details from you later.”
    â€œNo, you can’t.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œYou’ll see when you get there.”
    â€œNow who’s being cryptic?”
    â€œIf I tell you, will you come back with me? Now? No detours?”
    â€œHe’s too old for you.”
    â€œStop changing the subject!”
    â€œWell, he is.”
    â€œIt’s none of your business.”
    â€œExcuse me for caring.”
    â€œListen. Just shut it and listen for two seconds, please. One of the other candidates is making incriminating charges against Don.”
    â€œWho? What are they saying?”
    â€œBliss. He won’t say what he’s got on Don. All he’ll say is that he’s infiltrated the Feeney campaign, and that one of us is feeding him information. He has a name.”
    â€œOne of us?”
    From the way they looked down and away, Adam knew that he was that name.
    Opening the old woman’s note, reading the address to which he was supposed to report and the name, unfamiliar at first then shockingly remembered, of the person he was charged to meet, Adam recalled what the old woman had said before closing the car window and preventing inquiry. How had she known? He wondered how much of his private life was known only to him.
    LB had released a name to the ravenous press. Adam could guess what level of anxiety now filled the room occupied by the Don Feeney election team. The PM was supposed to touch down in Halifax to lend support to the campaign before continuing to a meeting in Brussels. The timing could not have been worse. Of all of them, Adam was the one who would be hustled onto another plane and flown back to the capital city. Knowing this, he did something that would very much have pleased his nine-year-old, James Bond besotted self. When Oliver, Emma and he got back to the hotel, Adam slipped out of the elevator just as the doors were closing and ran outside.
    He had a route in mind, a