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think.”
    Rick sat up straighter. “It’s been almost twenty-four hours, and the press people have had nothing but the barest facts. One reporter tried to sneak in, but the hospital has things buttoned up tight.”
    “So?”
    “We need to give ’em something solid.”
    “What are the options?”
    “We could let the hospital take care of it, put out a release, maybe even send an administrator and your mother’s doctor out to answer questions. Or we could put out a statement from our office. Or you could talk to ’em yourself.”
    “Who is her doctor?”
    “A cardiologist named Cutter.”
    “Nolan Cutter?”
    “Yes.”
    “An old friend.”
    “He’ll be helpful?”
    “I’m sure of it.” She sat back in her chair. “So what’s your advice?”
    He hunched over the table, fingers drumming on the wood, then looked up. “A statement from us, just some basics—her present condition, resting comfortably, hospital doing a great job, yada, yada. Then later today, the administrator and the doc talk to the press folks, keep it to your mother’s medical condition, nothing personal.”
    “Personal?”
    “I’ve had some questions about why Mickey wasn’t at the inauguration. Asking if you and she are … estranged.”
    “I see. Well, I could say that’s none of their damn business, but I guess in my present state of affairs, just about everything is their damn business. Or at least they think it is.” She rose and reached for her coat. “My mother didn’t attend the inauguration because she’s sick. But just stick to the statement.”
    “You want to see a draft?”
    “You know what to say. Line up the hospital people. Sooner or later, probably sooner, I’ll need to have a press conference myself. This, things in general. But not just yet. Let’s see how things shape up.”
    “Gotcha.”
    She picked up the sheaf of press releases and gave him a smile. “And no more of these.”

    When he was gone, she stood at the window, looking out at the Capitol grounds, the sky even darker now, a somber, lowering gray, the crew at the bottom of the marble steps finishing their dismantling of the inaugural stand, traffic moving up and down the boulevard. Everything ordinary now, things moving on, business as usual. The vast machinery of state government grinding along as if nothing unusual had happened yesterday, and wouldn’t today or tomorrow. And here she was, in this cavernous room with its massive desk and its flags and portraits. This must be , she thought, the way it was for every person who won this office, no matter how massive of ego, no matter how brimming with confidence. After all the hoopla, sobering reality .
    She felt the aloneness in spades. But something else, too. Unlike the others, she hadn’t spent a lifetime clawing her way up the ladder, piling up political debts, dragging baggage that included worn-out ideas and ways of looking at things. All right, she had an understanding with Pickett, but that damn sure didn’t mean she was a puppet. And it damn sure didn’t leave room for being babysat.

FIVE
    She was finishing lunch when the call came from the hospital: Mickey had taken a turn for the worse. She said she was dying.
    Cooper was halfway there when Pickett called. “I hear you had a visitor.”
    “Word travels fast,” she said. “Where are you?”
    “Keene. Cooper—”
    “What’s in Keene?”
    “A college.”
    “Is Carter with you?”
    “Yes. No, he’s here, but not with me at the moment.”
    “Tell him to call me.”
    “All right, all right,” he said, exasperated. “Why in the hell were you talking to Wheeler Kincaid? Roger said you wouldn’t let him sit in, wouldn’t tell him what it was about.” He rattled off the words, bit off the ends of his sentences—all business, all Pickett with his buttpuckered at the prospect of a nasty surprise.
    “It was an off-the-record conversation,” she said.
    “Cooper, for God’s sake!”
    She laid the cell phone on the car