“Mom, I’m in a huge traffic jam. I’ll be there in five minutes. Call me if you get this message.”

  The detour curved around the public park to the north, which was generally in the direction of Tysons Tower. Kate was trying not to worry, but she wished the old man at the intersection had not volunteered that the pedestrian was “a woman.” Kate would never forget that night during her junior year of high school, the night of the biggest argument she’d ever seen between her parents, when her mother had announced that she was leaving, that she would rather sleep in the park than sleep in the same bed as “that man.” A speeding van had come within six inches of killing her as she’d staggered across the street in her nightgown.

  Kate dialed building security at the front desk. “Hi, it’s Kate. Did my mother leave the building anytime recently?”

  “Not since I came on at two. Everything okay, Miss Gamble?”

  “I think so. She didn’t answer her phone.”

  “Would you like me to check on her?”

  “No, no need. I’ll be right there.”

  The call ended. Kate picked up the pace, passing one person after another along the detour. Tysons Tower was a mixed-use complex of residential, retail, and office space. Its massive footprint covered an entire city block, with streets on all four sides. The street closure was on the other side of the building, opposite the main residential entrance. The sidewalk was the preferred route in the falling rain, but Kate opted for the jogging path, which would shave about sixty seconds off the detour. She did her best to dodge the mud puddles along the way. Mindful of the ambulances on the other side of the building, she looked both ways before crossing the street, and then hurried up the granite steps to the revolving glass entrance door. A janitor was mopping up the trail of wet footprints that cut across the polished granite floor to the bank of elevators.

  “Watch your step,” said the security guard from behind the desk.

  Kate said she would, even though she was walking in the opposite direction, the clean and dry path to the private penthouse elevator. The touchpad on the wall recognized her fingerprint, the chrome doors opened, and she stepped into the car. There were no buttons to push on the inside panel.

  “Close,” said Kate. The algorithm obeyed her command, and the express elevator sped upward like a launched missile. Kate checked her cell quickly. The ride lasted only slightly longer than it took for Kate to confirm that her mother still had not responded to her voicemail message. The doors parted, and Kate entered the cherrywood-paneled private lobby to the penthouse. One of her father’s bodyguards was standing outside the closed double-entrance doors, which startled Kate. She had thought her father was out of town.

  “Is my father back?”

  “No. Yesterday the company went on high alert.”

  Kate’s father had a bodyguard twenty-four/seven, but her mother put up with one only when Buck Technologies was on “high-alert” status. It could have meant anything from rumors of a planned assassination of the CEO by a foreign government, to anonymous postings on the internet that rose to the level of a “credible threat.” Kate and her mother were never privy to the reason why the company was on high alert.

  “Have you seen my mother today?”

  “Once. There was a flower delivery this morning. Building security brought them up.”

  Fresh-cut flowers were a must in the Gamble apartment, and her mother had a standing order for daily delivery. Kate went inside. The flowers were right on the credenza in the foyer. Calla lilies. Kate’s favorite. And unlike the standing order, this delivery came with a card: “Congratulations on your first play! Love always, Mom.”

  It was far from her “first.” Like any aspiring writer, Kate’s unseen efforts measured into the gigabytes. But the flowers and the sentiment still made her smile.

  “Mom?”

  There was no response. Kate continued around the corner to the great room and stopped. A wall of sliding glass doors led to a wraparound terrace. The mountain views were gorgeous at sunset, but there wasn’t much to see on a rainy night. Something else, however, had stopped Kate in her tracks. One of the doors was open, and the fringe on the silk area rug was soaked from the windblown rain. Kate had a vision of the bad old days, her mother standing out on the terrace in the pouring rain. Alone. And drunk.

  “Mom, it’s me.”

  Kate walked tentatively toward the open door. The rising glow of emergency beacons flashed from street level, twenty stories below. Another vision popped into Kate’s head: drunk and rubbernecking from the penthouse terrace.

  Kate continued across the room, feeling the cold, misty spray of windblown rain on her face as she neared the open door. She stopped in the opening and checked the terrace.

  Her mother was not there.

  A wave of panic came over her. Kate ran to the kitchen, to the master bedroom, to the library, to the billiard room—from room to room, calling for her mother.

  “Mom! Where are you?”

  She was nowhere to be found.

  Kate ran to the foyer, flung open the door, and called for the bodyguard. He drew his weapon, hurried inside, and followed Kate to the terrace. She was talking fast, explaining the situation to him, but her mind was in so many different places that she felt like she was speaking in tongues. She stepped out onto the terrace, but before she could force herself to look out over the railing, she saw as much as she needed to see.

  On the rail, hooked by a pointed brass finial, a torn strip of clothing was blowing in the wet breeze. Kate recognized the fabric. It was the dress she had picked out for her mother the last time they’d gone shopping together. Part of her wanted to scream at the top of her voice. Part of her had been preparing for this nightmare for a very long time.

  “Oh, my God, Mom. What have you done?”

  Chapter 2

  Christian Gamble raised his sword toward the setting sun. The orange ball on the horizon rested atop the glistening tip like an olive on a toothpick.

  The CEO of Buck Technologies was in Chicago to finalize the acquisition of a much smaller competitor in the data-integration industry. It was an important strategic transaction, but not important enough to interrupt his daily tai chi routine. Gamble and his bodyguard staked out a spot on the Great Lawn in Millennial Park, near the famous music pavilion. The sculptures, water features, and other forms of public art were popular with tourists, but September was beyond peak season, making the lawn one of the most serene expanses of greenspace within the city limits. Gamble executed a series of elegant tai chi and qigong moves, shifting the pebbles gently under his feet as he twisted and turned. A yoga class moved with equal grace at the other end of the lawn. Joggers, walkers, and the occasional surrey bike passed along the path behind him. A group of teenagers stopped to watch the strange dude in the kimono slashing his sword through the air. The bodyguard stepped toward them, which was enough to make any bystander move along, though one of the boys let Gamble know how he felt about it.

  “Hey, old man, your guard is an asshole!”

  Gamble didn’t think of himself as an “old man,” but the kid’s parting shot was otherwise spot-on. Despite Gamble’s regular performance of his skill outdoors, not a single unauthorized photo of him had ever appeared on social media—or, if posted, had never remained long enough for anyone to know it had ever existed.

  Gamble finished his last series of moves and walked to the bench at the edge of the lawn. He wiped the sword clean and placed it in a case that a passerby might think belonged to one of the many musicians who performed in the park. His bodyguard locked it with a key.

  “Sir, will you be needing this for tomorrow’s negotiations?” he asked, joking.

  Gamble smiled, but slicing and dicing the owner of a target company was not what made him tick. Before Buck was listed on the NASDAQ, he was known for “win-win” deals in which the real winner was technology. But, as CEO of a publicly traded company, he now reported to the board of directors and its chairman, and the “betterment of humankind” was not on their list of reasons to approve a proposed acquisition, no matter how badly the CEO wanted it.

  “All for the greater good,” said Gamble.

  His bodyguard chuckled, but Gamble truly did see the growth of his company as essential to the “greater good.” Its patented software programs gathered and processed vast quantities of data in order to identify connections, patterns, and trends that eluded most human analysts. The accepted goal of “data integration” was to help organizations make better decisions, and many of Buck’s customers regarded its technology as indispensable. Gamble spoke more nobly of his objectives. “We built our company to support the West,” he’d once told the New York Times. To that end, Buck proudly touted its claim that it refused to do business with countries that it deemed adversarial to the U.S. and its allies, namely China and Russia.

  Gamble took a seat on the bench, grabbed a nonalcoholic beer from the bin, and cracked it open. The sunset glistened in the glass towers of the city skyline. He loved Chicago. He sometimes wished he’d moved his headquarters there instead of Tysons Corner, less for business reasons than for personal: Would Elizabeth’s drinking have gotten out of hand if they’d moved to Illinois? It was the kind of metaphysical, chain-of-causation question that could make a person crazy. What if we’d stayed in Silicon Valley? What if we’d moved somewhere other than Virginia? What if we’d simply waited another month to move? What if we’d taken a connecting flight instead of the nonstop to Reagan National? What if I’d chosen the fish instead of the chicken on the in-flight meal?

  What if I’d never met “that woman,” as Elizabeth called her?

  The mere mention of her name could trigger Elizabeth. He’d told her countless times that Sandra Levy was a trusted advisor, nothing more, but Elizabeth would never accept it. As things turned out, the point was moot.

  Sandra wasn’t even eligible for parole yet.

  “Sir, your daughter is on the line.”

  Gamble put down his beverage and took the phone. “Hi, Kate. What’s up?”

  Her voice was filled with urgency. “It’s Mom. You need to come home. Right away.”

  Chapter 3

  By ten o’clock, Kate could cry no more. She dabbed the corner of her eye, and the tissue came up dry. Emotionally, she could have wept till dawn, but her tear ducts had shut down, as if to say, Pull yourself together, kiddo.

  A forensic and criminal investigation team from the Fairfax County Police Department had taken over the penthouse, so Kate had gone downstairs with one of the detectives on the scene to answer questions. She didn’t live in Tysons Tower, but technically she owned an apartment there. Kate was in her third year of law school—she was quite realistic about the odds of making it as a playwright—and her father had purchased a one-bedroom unit in her name in the hope that, after graduation, Kate might return to Tysons Corner and work in the legal department at Buck Technologies. Kate had other ideas, and being her father’s neighbor and employee was not even on her list of remote possibilities. The police interview was actually the first time she’d seen the apartment furnished. It reflected her mother’s tastes, which didn’t help, given the circumstances.

  “I’m sorry I’m not being much help,” said Kate.

  She was seated at the dining room table with Detective Anderson of the Major Crimes Division of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. He was a large man, undoubtedly muscle-bound in his younger years, simply thick in middle age. He wore a necktie with the top button of his shirt unbuttoned, not to be casual but because the jowls made it impossible to button it. Another detective and a uniformed officer were also in the room but seated off to the side. Kate had been answering questions for nearly an hour.

  “You’re doing just fine,” said Anderson.

  Kate knew he was being kind. His questions weren’t difficult. Was your mother upset about anything recently? Had she stopped calling her friends or stopped going out? Any changes in her daily routine? A daughter who claimed to be close to her mother probably should have been more helpful. Yet Kate found herself answering “I don’t know” far too often, which only lent credence to the very accusations that had precipitated Kate’s visit that night. You never come see me anymore, Kate. You never call.

  “Did your mother use drugs or alcohol?” asked the detective.

  That question she could answer. “My mother is—was—an alcoholic.”

  “You say ‘was’ because she used to drink?”

  “She’s been sober for a long time. But once you’re an alcoholic, you’re always an alcoholic. I said ‘was’ because—she’s gone now.”

  “Understood. How bad was she?”

  Kate could have told stories. But what was the point? Police reports had been known to find their way to the media.

  “My father can speak to that better than I can.”

  As if on cue, the doorbell chimed. Kate immediately pushed away from the table and answered it. Her father embraced her on sight. As complicated as their relationship had been over the years, Kate needed the hug.

  “I came as fast as I could,” he said, releasing her.

  She gave him credit for that. Ninety minutes from Chicago to Washington was fast, even on the company jet.

  “I’m sorry—” he started to say, and then he paused.

  Kate waited. Maybe he wasn’t quite sure if he had anything to apologize for; or maybe he couldn’t decide which of so many things he was most sorry about.

  “I’m sorry this happened while I was away. You don’t deserve this.”

  Kate hadn’t been looking for an apology—definitely not of this sort. “That’s nobody’s fault.”

  Detective Anderson politely interrupted and handed Gamble a business card. “I’m with Major Crimes,” he added.

  “Is suicide a major crime?”

  “We do have certain steps and procedures that have to be followed. Your daughter has been a tremendous help.”

  “I hope you have everything you need,” he said.

  “Almost,” said the detective. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I’d prefer to spend some time alone with my daughter.”

  “It’s okay,” said Kate. The phone call to her father in Millennial Park had continued through the halfway point of his flight home, which was immediately followed by the detective’s interrogation. “I’ve been talking nonstop for the last two hours. I could use a moment to myself.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. It’s better for you, too, to just get this over with. I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

  Her father didn’t argue. Kate went to the kitchen and sat on one of the barstools, which looked like a director’s chair, which made her think of Irving Bass—which didn’t help matters. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help but overhear the voices from the dining room.

  “First, I want to say how sorry I am for your loss, Mr. Gamble.”

  Kate’s mind wandered as the detective ran through the same litany of questions she’d just endured. Her gaze drifted toward the terrace, which she would never use. The thought of stepping out there, walking to the rail, and looking down gave her chills, even though the street had been cleared. Or so she’d been told. She hadn’t actually looked—not even from the penthouse; not even at the moment of discovery. The torn dress told her all she needed to know. She’d stood in the open doorway, frozen, and dialed 911. “What is your emergency?” the dispatcher had asked. There was none, really. It was too late. The deed was done. Rather than look over the rail and sear the nightmare into her memory forever, Kate, in her mind’s eye, had traveled back to her undergraduate course on the history of photography and retrieved the iconic black-and-white photograph of Evelyn McHale, who, in 1947, had leapt from the Empire State Building’s eighty-sixth-floor observation deck and landed on the roof of a United Nations limousine parked on the street below. The crushed car top had cushioned her fall, so that the young and pretty Evelyn lay on her back as if sleeping. Life magazine had captioned her death “the most beautiful suicide.”

  Kate wondered how beautiful it had been to Evelyn’s family.

  Her attention shifted back to Detective Anderson’s questions, which seemed to be annoying her father.

  “Mr. Gamble, pardon my digression, but I read somewhere that your company was actually involved in tracking down Osama bin Laden. Is that true?”

  “I can only tell you what I tell everyone else: if we were involved, it would not be among our most impressive accomplishments.”

  “The old ‘neither confirm nor deny’ routine, eh?”

  “Detective, I’m not here to talk about the company.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry. It was my awkward way of pointing out the common ground between us. You might say that you and me both are in the information business, right? I gather and organize information to do my job. You do the same.”

  “Can we get on with this, please?”

  “Sure. What were you doing in Chicago?”

  “That’s confidential business information. And what difference does it make here?”

  “None, I suppose. Lemme shift gears. I didn’t notice any security cameras in the penthouse or on the terrace. Your daughter said she didn’t know if there were any.”

  “The building has a security guard in the lobby twenty-four/seven. We have a dedicated private elevator that won’t move unless it recognizes your retinal scan. If a credible threat arises, I post another security guard outside the door.”

  “So no cameras in the apartment?”

  “No.”

  Kate went to the refrigerator for something to drink. It was empty. For a moment, she’d forgotten that no one actually lived there. She kept listening.

  “Kind of odd,” said the detective, “no security cameras. Seems a guy like you, CEO of a big tech company, would have cameras everywhere.”

  “I don’t know what you’re implying, but if it’s that important, let me say for the record that it wasn’t my decision. Elizabeth wouldn’t allow them.”