Do you have to go? It had kept her sleepless for the better part of two nights, and Myka wasn't sure if her insomnia was due more to her regret at leaving or the fact that she felt no guilt about the regret. If she hadn't all but flung herself out of Helena's house . . . . She barely made it into the elevator before the doors closed. Punching the floor number, she slumped against the wall. In another unheard-of development, she had drunk her Starbucks before she even made it into the downtown. She pinched her nose, hard, as the elevator stopped and she had to pretend to be an agent who wasn't fighting, and feebly at that, an attraction to a suspect in an investigation.

She stopped in the breakroom and poured herself a cup of coffee and then, with utter remorselessness, stole one of Pete's RedBulls from the refrigerator. She was staring blankly at her monitor when she heard a loud pop close to her ear. Half-falling out of her chair, she whirled around, her heart battering against her chest in caffeine-fueled fright. "Jesus, Pete."

Laughing, he backed away, snapping the fingers of both hands. "I knew it, I knew it," he crowed. "You sleep with your eyes open. You didn't even hear me come in.""

"You're such a child," Myka growled. She shook her coffee cup and the RedBull can. Both empty. How long had she been staring at her screen?

Though he was still smiling, she could read the concern in his eyes. "I thought you looked like 20 miles of bad road yesterday. Now I think you look like death warmed over."

"Stop with the flattery." She stood up and motioned him out of her cube. "I need more coffee and more of your RedBull."

"You're going to two-fist it in front of Irene? We've got a meeting with her and Blue Justice in about five minutes. Remember?" At her groan of frustration, he said, "What's keeping you up at night?"

"Nothing," she muttered.

"Or should I be asking who's keeping you up at night?"

Ignoring him, she lengthened her stride, wanting to put some distance between her and Pete's smirking face but trying to avoid breaking into a run. That would be too humiliating. She would visit the bathroom and the breakroom, and maybe pound her head against a wall, if she had time before the meeting started. As it turned out, the headbanging had to wait. Thirty seconds to spare, and she was still the last one to the meeting. Irene, Steve, and Pete were gathered around the office's small conference table, and in the center was . . . nothing. No treats from Liam. Pete gazed sorrowfully at the empty space, while Myka inwardly sighed with relief. Today was a day when, despite her professed disdain for sugary carbohydrates, she would have had no self-control if Steve had brought anything in.

"Kelly Hernandez wants to meet with us this afternoon." Irene paused, letting her words gather weight. "I hope we have something to tell her."

Meaning "We better have something to tell her," of course. Myka hadn't worked for Irene for as long as she had without discovering that words like hope and consider and tomorrow often meant expect and do and now. Ordinarily, she would be the first to volunteer. On the outside she might be an FBI agent, but on the inside she was still just a girl seeking her father's approval. What was holding her back this morning was that both sides of her were as shocked as hell that she had almost kissed a suspect. But that was just it, she didn't believe that Helena was involved in the fraud. The problem was she was the only one in the room who was convinced of it.

". . . and my contact in the Los Angeles field office said they're all bogus, offices, warehouses, laboratories, all of it. Once they saw the solar panel field, they knew what they'd find. This was a scam from the beginning." Pete cast another sorrowful look at the center of the table. He wanted to reward himself with a donut, a pastry, anything sweet. Myka pictured him howling like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, "L-i-i-i-i-i-a-a-a-m."

Trying to rein in her wandering thoughts, Myka paid excessive attention to lifting her coffee cup and then sipping her coffee. She had to, she would die of humiliation if she slurped in Irene's presence. She wasn't Pete. All the deliberateness was getting her was a steady gaze from Irene. Myka couldn't see it – her eyes were on her cup – but she could feel it. Ah, God, she couldn't put it off any longer. The silence and the stare, her father, every teacher, every veteran agent she had ever disappointed, she had never been able to bear up under the disapproval. "Helena and I had some interesting encounters with the Amundsons over the weekend. We went to the annual picnic, where she introduced me to Nolan as her girlfriend." She paused, hoping she wasn't blushing. "He was cordial. If he was surprised, he didn't show it, but his attention was pretty much focused on Helena." Myka had been convinced at the time that he would forget her name as they walked past him. Later she realized that he had taken more notice than she thought. At the pumpkin-carving tables, where Christina and Emmie showed more interest in marking up the butcher block paper laid on the tables than the pumpkin themselves, she had felt a touch on her shoulder, and she looked up into Nolan's eyes, which were no longer welcoming. "I hadn't been given the 'you better treat my daughter well or else" speech before, but it was clear that he's very paternal, very protective toward her." Myka hesitated. "I don't think he's that good of an actor. He didn't bring her here to see her fail."

She had directed her last words at Irene, but Irene's expression was unchanged. Myka didn't believe that Nolan and Helena were partners in a fraud; mainly, she had to admit, because she was convinced that Helena wasn't a criminal. She wanted Irene to believe it, too. "You said encounters, plural." Irene tilted her head slightly, a gesture not so much encouraging as expectant. "What else have you learned about the Amundsons?"

"According to Helena, Nolan didn't tell his sons in advance that he was bringing her into the organization. Now that it looks like Amundson Securities is involved in a fraudulent investment, Perry is even more upset." Myka drained the rest of her coffee, wishing there were more. "He all but threatened her, telling her that the family would clean up Nolan's mistakes."

"She told you, meaning you weren't there to hear any of it?"

Technically it was a question, but Pete's skepticism was clear. Normally Myka expected pushback from him, even welcomed it, but not this morning. Levelly she said, "If Nolan's behavior around her during the picnic is typical, I can understand why his sons would be resentful."

Pete opened his mouth to say something else but thought better of it, rubbing his index finger across his upper lip. Steve waited an extra second or two in case Pete changed his mind, then offered, "I spoke with a friend of mine at the SEC. They're planning to open an investigation into Amundson Securities. Although the investment itself was a private offering, the company is a registered firm, and they're wondering what else might be going on. He asked me not to share the information outside the Bureau. They don't want the Amundsons getting wind of this." He and Irene exchanged a look.

"Everybody's going to think we're late to the party," she murmured.

"Should make for an interesting meeting this afternoon." Steve arched an eyebrow and glanced at Pete and Myka. The blue of his eyes was especially intense, and Myka thought he might be the only one who was looking forward to sparring with Kelly Hernandez.

That was the signal that the meeting was over, and Myka intended to hit the coffee service like a tornado, but Irene's "Myka, do you have a few minutes?," which Myka interpreted as the statement, "Myka, you do have a few minutes," kept her in her seat. Irene waited until the door closed after Steve, Pete, as usual, having practically hurdled the conference table in his eagerness to leave. Her smile made Myka even more uneasy, as if Irene knew something about her that she didn't know about herself. "You've grown to like Helena Wells."

Another question that wasn't a question, but with Irene, it didn't matter. She always expected a response. "If by that you mean I don't believe she's involved in the fraud, I've always been open about my doubts."

Irene's smile grew wider and she actually chuckled. "You need to work on your misdirection. I'm still waiting for an answer."

"I like her." Myka tried not to see Helena's face tilted up to hers, the lips parting. Do you have to go? Her mouth suddenly dry, she cleared her throat. "She resented our intrusion into her life, but she chose to work with us. She's kept her cool, and she's taken risks we haven't asked of her to find out what she can. Vibes are Pete's thing, not mine, but something tells me that we can trust her." Myka hoped her gaze was steady. "I do trust her."

"Myka Bering listening to her gut," Irene said musingly. "I'm not sure whether I'm amused or afraid." Myka wasn't sure either. In the same musing tone, Irene added, "She may not be part of the fraud, but Helena's . . . important . . . in a way you or I haven't figured out yet. The former family friend . . . what the hell did Nolan do to Helena's father that he felt obligated to help her?" She chuckled to herself. "Have you been to the state historical society lately?"

It only sounded like a non sequitur, Myka knew. "Not since a school field trip."

"Magnus Amundson sat on its board for many years, and when he died, he left the society his papers and boxes of Amundson family history. Maybe what we're looking for is there." When Myka blinked at her, Irene said chidingly, "It doesn't close until 7:00. You'll have plenty of time after the meeting with Ms. Hernandez to stop by."

At her desk, Myka dry swallowed a couple of ibuprofen and then washed away the aftertaste with a slug of coffee that, luckily, wasn't quite hot enough to burn her mouth. She didn't have a headache, but she decided to take the pills preemptively. It was going to be that kind of day. By the time Kelly arrived for the meeting, Myka had had more coffee, a Big Gulp (courtesy of Pete), another ibuprofen, and a convenience store Italian club sandwich (courtesy of Pete from the same 7-11), and of those items, she was pretty sure it was the sandwich and its various salamis that had her putting her hand to her stomach as if she could comfort it. Caffeine, coffee, NSAIDs, not a gurgle. The sandwich? If her stomach were a cat, it would have its ears back. She wouldn't trust her lunch to Pete again.

Pete was in the conference room with Kelly. Myka paused in the doorway, watching him lean over the table, his attention completely focused on the woman across from him. "I've seen you chow down after a game. Chicken wings? Nachos? Sliders?" Kelly kept her head bent over a half-open attache case. Pete rubbed the skin under his nose. "You cannot be the kind of woman who likes something like spinach bites. You absolutely cannot be."

For the first time that day, Myka felt herself smiling. Yes, she couldn't get the idea of kissing Helena out of her mind, she needed to prop open her eyes with toothpicks, and her stomach was still deciding whether it would take on the Italian club, but seeing Pete all but rolling on the floor and wagging his tail to get Kelly to look at him, it was something she could needle him about for days. Taking the chair next to his, she said, "Insulting our guests again?"

"I'm not insulting her. She's not a spinach-type of girl," Pete said with a shudder. "What?" He glanced from one set of glaring eyes to the other. "What did I say?"

"Girl," Kelly said icily.

"'Spinach-type,'" Myka growled.

"All I'm trying to do is find out what costume Kelly's wearing to a Halloween party we've both been invited to. We've got to dress as our favorite snack or beverage. Is casual conversation a lost art?" Pete demanded.

Kelly took a few thin folders from her attache case, snapped it shut, and placed it on the floor. "You do small talk like you play softball, ineptly." Relenting, she said, "I'm going as a mimosa. I've got an old bridesmaid's dress that's just that color of orange." Hearing the reprieve, Pete snapped his head up and grinned. Kelly frowned at him and cleared her throat, "If everyone's here, we should get started."

Steve unhurriedly entered the conference room and took the chair at the head of the table. "Now everyone's here." He managed to look both slightly abashed and businesslike at the same time. "Sorry I'm late. Irene's not going to be able to get out of her conference call, but she said we should go ahead without her."

Kelly provided them each a folder, and Myka silently took a breath before she opened it. She knew what was inside, one thing, anyway, but knowing didn't make the tightness in her chest go away. Beside her, Pete was grumbling about not getting electronic copies of the emails, "It's like you don't trust us," but Kelly responded only with the blandest of looks. Myka shut out Pete's grumbling, which was just another questionable tactic of his charm offensive, and scanned the first document. It was the email Helena had found on Nolan's old laptop. She turned it over and saw more emails between Helena and Nolan. None were as damning as the first, but there was a familiarity in the messages that belied Helena's claim that she hardly knew Nolan. Finding a clean page in her notepad, Myka listed the dates of the emails. They stretched back months before Helena arrived in the city, with the exception of the last few. Myka read them more closely; they were shorter than the earlier emails and more businesslike. This Helena was focused on the practicalities of the move and the expectations she needed to meet in this new job. She either felt she didn't have the time or lacked the confidence to address Nolan with the ease she had previously. Or she wasn't the writer of all of the emails.

Lifting her eyes from the last of them, she saw that Pete and Steve had closed their files and that Kelly was looking at her expectantly. "You were really studying them," she said. "What's your take?"

"I'm not sure I have one. Yes, the first email seems incriminating, but the rest, all they do is support the idea that Helena and Nolan knew each other long before she got the job at Amundson Securities."

"Seems incriminating?" Kelly leaned back in her chair, emphasizing the disbelief in her voice. "It all but spells out that both she and Nolan were in on this fraud. What more are you looking for? If there were a signed confession, we wouldn't need you."

"It's not like the FBI isn't investigating," Pete protested. "We are looking into it, and the Los Angeles office is investigating the start-ups."

"And this doesn't leave the room, but the SEC is about to descend on Amundson Securities," Steve added.

Kelly wasn't mollified. "I don't get it. You should've been jumping in with both feet weeks ago."

"Maybe we like to know what we're jumping into first. Who is our anonymous source? Why haven't they come forward? Maybe we're being conned into believing that Helena and Nolan are responsible." Myka hoped she sounded reasonable instead of irritated, but she braced herself for a broadside from Kelly.

The smug smile wasn't what she was expecting. "Our source has come forward. One of them, anyway." With a cocky tilt of her head, Kelly added, "Not small fry, a big fish."

Pete and Steve straightened in their chairs, and Steve automatically tightened the knot in his tie. Tantalize, intrigue, but know when to commit. Myka didn't exactly feel that she was being positioned on a chessboard, but she sensed the hand hovering in the air. Whoever was behind the fraudulent start-ups had decided to openly attack the king. "C'mon, Kells, don't keep us in suspense," Pete said.

Kells? Myka wasn't sure whether she should be offended. She had thought 'Mykes' was special . . . unless, of course, 'Kells' was special, too. However, she would have to add it to the growing list of Kelly-related items to twit Pete about later, because she needed to slow down the calculations her mind was racing through. Not numbers, numbers would have been easier. She was adding all that she had read, observed, and heard since she and Pete had stood outside the door to Helena's condo. The name she was coming up with might look wrong, but it felt right. "It's Tom Wagner, isn't it?"

She had said the name so quietly that she wasn't sure the others had heard her, but Kelly blinked, trying not to let her surprise show. "What have you been holding back from us?" Pete's jaw had dropped although his eyes were asking 'How did you pull that one out of your ass?' Steve, as usual, was the picture of composure, except for the slow movement of his head from side to side.

"Based on what we have, it's a logical conclusion. It would take someone who has or could easily obtain high-level access to the Amundson Companies' network to find this information. Tom Wagner is the head of IT. What I don't know is who told him what to look for." Myka had never been very good with smugness, except with Pete, and she suspected that her attempt at flashing Kelly a smug smile, like her attempts at expressing self-satisfaction in general, wasn't successful. She probably looked like she was trying to eat a lemon.

"We're hoping he'll tell us next week. He's indicated that this isn't something he's doing alone, but he hasn't volunteered names." Kelly waited a few seconds before offering, with a generosity that held a triumphant note, "You're more than welcome to join us. Next Wednesday, Adwin's office, 2:00 p.m." Her "Or you can continue to take a back seat" hung, unspoken, in the air.

There wasn't much to discuss after that, and Pete and Myka accompanied Kelly to the elevator, their conversation light and mainly conducted by Pete and Kelly. Only after the elevator doors closed did Pete release a long, pent-up breath. Myka nudged his shoulder. "So, you're taking her to this Halloween party. Is it a date?"

"Where's that photogenic memory of yours?" He laughed as Myka struggled not to correct him. "Almost got you. I told you she was seeing Sam. He has some family obligation, so, since I was going anyway, I told her I could give her a ride. That's all it is." He grew serious. "We can't not talk about the elephant in the elevator bay. Not that you didn't make an amazing save guessing the name, but someone's come forward. Do you really think this Tom Watson guy is willing to lie to Kosan, to us about what's going on and who's behind it?"

Myka shrugged, trying not to react negatively to what was, after all, understandable skepticism. "People will risk a lot if they think it's worth the reward. Think beyond Helena . . . who benefits if Nolan's out?"

Pete started heading back toward their cubes. "I can't think beyond Helena because it all started with her. Occam's razor, remember?" Confronted with one of their rare disagreements, Pete did what came naturally, he made a joke. "I always wondered what the hell kind of razor he created to have people talking about it all the time. You put me wise." He tilted his head. "C'mon, I'll buy you a coffee, and we'll talk this out."

"Irene's sending me on a field trip. I'll have to catch you later." Myka hadn't intended to leave quite this early for the historical society, but she didn't need to stop by her desk to pick anything up, and she really needed to clear her head. She leaned against the back wall of the elevator car after Pete disappeared from view. Do you have to go? versus Occam's razor, remember? She wasn't having to choose between her head and her heart because they were saying the same thing, which was the problem. No matter how much she liked or disliked the people she investigated, she could follow the logic of the case to its end. Sometimes the ones she liked were the ones she arrested, and sometimes the ones she disliked were the ones who walked away. She had never had to worry that her feelings were warping her analysis of the evidence, but she was worried now.

Myka pushed the worry aside. She would let it out once she had negotiated her way to the historical society and back. When she was a kid, the society had been housed in a Gilded Age mansion bordering the downtown. It was so decrepit that on the occasional school field trip, she would anxiously listen for the skittering of mice in the walls. The class chaperones, however, had given little thought to the creatures in the walls, worrying instead about the flammability of the old wiring. Years after Myka had left elementary school, a fire sparked by the old wiring burned the historical society's kitchen. Although the damage was minor, part of a wall, a small kitchen table, and the bakery donuts bought that morning that had been placed on it (their loss was especially mourned by the staff), the realization that the fire could have been much worse led to the construction of a new home for the historical society.

Catching sight of one of the society's wings, which seemed to lift into the sky like a bird's wing, Myka felt a sentimental pang for the turn of the century wreck that this newer building had replaced. Sure, there had been mice and creaking floors and lights that inexplicably (or so it seemed at the time) dimmed and brightened, but it couldn't be said that the old mansion lacked personality. The new building was built from native sandstone, and its design, supported and emphasized by the sweeping wings, suggested the rolling prairie. Moreover, the largest part of its grounds was farmland that had been acquired for the purpose of returning it to wetland. It was all just a little too perfect, and Myka, always so aware of her own failings, could never quite embrace it. But neither the Bureau nor Irene cared about her reservations about the historical society's new home, and the only thing that her mind needed to be on was the society's trove of Amundson documents.

Unsurprisingly, those documents were to be found in the Amundson reading room off the Amundson galleries in the Magnus Amundson wing. Myka couldn't remember the historical society of her childhood being so wall-to-wall Amundson, but then Magnus Amundson was still alive when she was taking her lunch to school in her Saved by the Bell lunchbox. A volunteer, whose identity demanded powers of observation no greater from Myka than a glance at the "Staff Volunteer" badge the woman wore, led her to a table in the reading room. Photographs and portraits of long-dead Amundsons were on the walls, and as Myka waited for the volunteer to bring out the first file of Magnus Amundson's papers, she tried to put Amundson names to the (primarily) male Amundson faces. She was chagrined to realize she could identify only two, the family progenitor, Olaf, and the donor of the Magnus Amundson wing, Magnus himself.

Two hours and more files than she cared to count later, Myka had absorbed enough information to win an Amundson trivia content, yet none of it told her anything of importance about Nolan. She had expected to be buried in documents about the battle between Magnus and Nolan for control of Amundson Companies at the very least, but other than a stiffly written letter from Nolan acknowledging his uncle's retirement, there was nothing in the files about the most divisive period in the family's history. There were files that the staff volunteer hadn't pulled for her, but she had asked for only the ones that covered the years when Nolan rose to the position of CEO of Amundson Companies and then dominated it. She was both thirsty and drowsy. She could pore over financial statements for hours, but Magnus' post-CEO business correspondence successfully defied all the coffee – and Red Bulls – she had consumed during the day. It mainly consisted of soliciting politicians, industry giants, and the occasional religious figure to support his favored causes and charities. Leaving her jacket on the back of her chair as a signal that she intended to return, she went in search of a water fountain. Her phone vibrated as soon as she reached the main corridor. Helena.

On the right and farther down the corridor were restrooms and, between them, a water fountain. She was aware that her heart had begun to pound, and she pretended to herself that it was only because she hadn't expected a call, not because it was Helena's name on the screen.

"Hi," she said, striving for calmness, "how's it going?"

"At the risk of being melodramatic, straight to hell." Helena blew out a long, stressed breath. "I could barely hear you when you answered. Are you in a place where you can talk?"

"I will be." Myka shouldered open the door to the women's restroom. A glance at the stalls confirmed that she was alone. "Tell me what's going on."

"Dave Lindholm was fired today," Helena said flatly. "I didn't take any notice of the whispers and stares at first, for all the usual reasons. Then Nate stopped by and asked how I was handling the news about Dave. It was news to me that there was news about Dave." This time it was the inhale that was long and ragged. "It has to be my turn, if not tomorrow or the next day, soon."

Her voice soft, Myka could say only "Helena." She couldn't disagree. This wasn't like chess. There was more force than finesse to these moves. The fraud had been obvious, the emails and their delivery crude, and the coming forward of Tom Wagner blatant. It was dodgeball instead of chess, but the desire for dominance was the same.

"It sounds ludicrous to say 'I'm not looking for sympathy' when it seems so obvious that that's what I am doing," Helena said with a burst of impatience, which Myka recognized that she was directing at herself. "But I wanted to let you know in case it has some . . . significance."

"Do you want me to stop by?" Myka offered, not as appalled as she should have been that she was inviting temptation.

A low-pitched chuckle was Helena's initial response. "Do you think it's wise?" After a silence, she said, "You don't need to. I'm okay, I'll be okay no matter what happens." There followed some whispering, and Helena asked, "Do you have time to talk to Christina? She says she has to talk to you."

"Put her on." Over the next minute, Myka could pick out "Myka" and "coschume" and "candy." The rest was lost in giggles and gulping for air, as if Christina was overcome by the rush of her words. "Wow, you're right, you're going to surprise everyone. I bet your costume is terrific," Myka hazarded, not sure what she was agreeing with Christina about but believing a compliment would carry her to safer ground.

"You hardly understood a word she said." Helena had taken back control of the phone.

"I understood three," Myka protested.

"Let me translate for you. She changed her mind about her costume, and no one will recognize her in her new one. She wants to know if you'll be home on Halloween because she wants you to see her in her costume but you better have good candy." Helena paused, then dryly added, "Halloween is three days away, just in case you didn't know."

"I knew, but usually –"

"Usually you're not home in time to pass out candy. I was the same way before I had Christina. Now I put out decorations."

"But you don't do mother-daughter costumes?"

Helena scoffed. "I have some standards." Quietly she said, "I should let you get back to work."

"I'd hate to miss Christina's costume. I think I can arrange to be home early enough to pass out candy on Halloween. Can't say that it'll meet Christina's exacting requirements -"

"Which are that it's chocolate."

"Sounds easy enough. I'll see you then, um, on Halloween."

"For Christina's sake, obviously."

"Obviously."

In the mirror, her grin looked as wide as it felt. Myka tried to turn it into a grimace but wasn't completely successful. She needed to be concentrating on Helena's news, not Helena. Taking advantage of the still-empty restroom, she called Pete's number. It was after six, and he might have already left to meet friends or play in his 3x3 basketball league, but she might catch him still at his desk. She worked long hours because she just . . . did. Pete worked long hours when he had to. The call rolled over to voice mail, but she didn't leave a message. Whatever Dave Lindholm's firing meant, whether it was a signal that Amundson Securities and, by extension, Nolan Amundson was losing faith in Helena or something more benign, although Myka couldn't picture what that might be, it could wait until tomorrow.

When she returned to the Amundson reading room, the staff volunteer had been replaced by a stoop-shouldered man with gray fly-away hair in need of a cut. He was hovering near her table, and casting anxious glances at the jacket slung over the chair, as if he were expecting it to explain her absence. His face cleared as she neared, and he said almost apologetically, "Although the museum is open until 7:00, we close a little earlier. Do you want copies of anything?"

Myka shook her head. "Very interesting," she said, which wasn't the truth but "truthy," as Pete would say, more on the exaggeration-end than lie-end of the falsehood spectrum. "However, what I was hoping to find was more about his resignation from Amundson Companies and the rumors that Nolan Amundson engineered it."

"Heard that one before," the man said, his gaze landing on the fanned-out documents in front of her chair. Myka hadn't removed them from their protective coverings, but she felt herself flushing guiltily and began searching for the folders in which they had been stored. "We still have time," the man said genially, "no rush." He pushed a folder to her. "Powerful families don't air their dirty linen in public. The Amundsons are no different." Myka didn't respond, carefully slotting a letter in the folder. "Lots of people asking for these files are planning to write an article, tell the 'true story,' he curved his fingers in air quotes, "about Nolan Amundson's rise to power. They're always disappointed by what they don't find." The last words held a sardonic inflection.

"Nolan's an aging titan," Myka said. "Who's the Amundson who's going to challenge him?" The question was on her mind, but she wasn't interested in soliciting his opinion. She was ruminating aloud as a cover for her decided nontalent for small talk.

"Jay's been groomed to take over the companies," the man said, "but I wouldn't call him the challenging type."

"It sounds like you know him." Myka slowed her return of documents to their folders. Maybe there wasn't a rush. He was likely around Jay's or Perry's age. It was possible there could be a connection. Or he could simply be a Society staff person so long-tenured in the Amundson reading room that he had grown to think of the family as his own.

"I do, a little bit. My mother was friends with Joyce Amundson. I can remember playing with Jay and Perry at their estate." His expression grew wistful. "They had everything, bikes, a trampoline, a ping-pong table, tennis court, swimming pool, a basketball court. At home, I had a basketball hoop over the driveway." He shook his head. "Jay and I, we just liked horsing around, but Perry, he always had to win." Smiling at Myka, he added, "If any of the sons were to take on Nolan, it would be Perry. I'm just not sure they're hungry enough."

"What do you mean?"

He held up a finger. "Don't pack up quite yet." He disappeared behind the room's reference desk.

While she waited, Myka made sure that all the documents she had had spread out on the table were in the right folders and the folders in the right banker boxes. She wasn't terribly curious about what he would bring out for her, but he had already provided more useful information than she had found in the banker boxes. Perry, he always had to win. She had to be careful not to read too much into it. So Perry had been a jerk as a kid, too, it didn't mean that he was the one who had engineered the fraud. There were other ways to read the threats he had made to Helena and the role of his second-in-command, Tom Wagner, in the delivery of the emails.

When the man returned, his fly-away hair and the sides of the cardigan he was wearing were riding the wake of his long, rapid strides. "Good, you haven't left. Took me a little longer than I'd anticipated to find this." He held out to her a slightly oversized soft-covered book.

From Humble Beginnings. Myka lifted an eyebrow at the title. The humble beginnings of the Amundson family were long past the reach of anyone's memory, including the author's, Magnus Amundson. The '60s and '70s might seem antiquated with their absence of the internet, cell phones, and the Instapot, but she doubted that Magnus had ever shopped for clothing at Goodwill or caught a city bus to work – unless it had been part of a PR campaign to show that, just like the family company's truck drivers and warehouse workers, he could live on a budget.

"Some say he wrote a family history so scathing that Nolan kept it from being published for fear that it would end his budding political career," her self-appointed assistant said. "But that's not what the Amundsons do."

"Maybe that book would've sold better." Myka turned the book over and gazed at the author's photo on the back. Magnus hadn't much resembled his nephew. The face was broader, and his nose and cheeks were more boldly planed. He didn't look like he had just come in from the fields; he looked like he had just come down from the mountains, somewhere more formidable – and forbidding – than a family farm. Nonetheless, as Myka stared at the dark eyes that, under the reading room's lights, held only a blank, glossy sheen, she felt she had seen those same eyes livened with intelligence, humor, and – the connection suddenly snapped, and she was looking only at someone long dead whom she had never known.

"You might find it interesting. It's not gossipy and it's not a page-turner, but it tells you more about the family than you might think."

She had enough nightstand reading as it was, but, since the Amundson archives, at least those held by the historical society, were a bust, she had nothing to lose by speed-reading through this Readers Digest version of the Amundson family history, strong language, sex, and corporate back-stabbing excised. "What do I owe you for this?"

He raised his hands, deflecting her question. "Nothing. It's a printer's reject. You'll see when you open it. Not that we've sold many of the more pristine copies. Happy Highways is a best seller compared to it."

If she didn't have to pay for the book, she could pretend she was interested in the punchline. "Happy Highways?"

"The adventures of a retired couple traveling the state highways. It's only my personal opinion, but their trip to see the world's largest bottlecap collection, which is about an hour's drive from here, by the way, is the centerpiece of the book."

He did a good deadpan, but he probably had to field questions that narrowly ranged between the obvious and the repetitive all day. "Are you sure I can't pay for this?" Myka asked.

He tilted his head, considering. "You could come back and let me know if you found what you were looking for. I like success stories."

What was she looking for? Myka readjusted the pillows against the headboard of her bed and then gripped From Humble Beginnings as if she were about to shake it. So far all she had learned about the Amundsons was that out of generations of hardworking if not particularly successful farmers and fishermen, an Amundson had sprung who questioned the wisdom of trying to eke out a living on the margins of the Artic Circle and boarded a ship for America. He hadn't found greater success, fitfully tilling prairie and felling timber in the forests extending west from Lake Superior, but one of his sons, Olaf, Nolan's great-grandfather, was either more talented – or luckier. A picture of Olaf when he was in his 80s showed a prosperous dry-goods merchant or farmer, not a millionaire many times over. His face and hands bore the marks of weather, sun, and heavy labor. Despite the claims that he had stolen his fortune from other men, Olaf Amundson looked like he had earned every penny of it.

Myka riffled the pages, noting the occasional ink smears and faded text that had made the book unsellable, although she suspected that the market for a bland family history that praised Scandinavian thrift and abstemiousness, even if it was about the state's first family, was microscopically small in the first place. She paged back to a family photo, unsure what about it had caught her attention. The man in the center was a middle-aged version of Olaf, only better groomed and smiling with the self-satisfaction that the older man hadn't allowed himself. Yet for all his polish and ease, the younger man was lesser in comparison. His hands rested on the shoulders of the two very young men sitting in front of him. The caption beneath the picture read "President Karl Amundson and Executives-in-Training, Magnus and Per." A publicity photo for Amundson Companies, the kind that appeared in corporate PR, designed to show the workforce that their president was a family man like them and, at the same time, to reinforce the distance between his family and theirs. The child of an Amundson Companies employee wasn't likely to rise from the factories or the warehouses or the farms to become executives-in-training.

Magnus wore a cocky grin beneath a fledgling mustache. He seemed about to get up from his chair, shake off the paternally restraining hand, and lead the family firm into the future. He had a fraternity pin in the lapel of his suit jacket, but his mustache displayed the tentativeness he otherwise lacked – a college man but only a freshman or sophomore. Someone who would have skipped straight to the pictures, someone who wasn't Myka, might have assumed that he was the older of the two brothers, the heir apparent. Per was only three years older than Magnus, but the solemn expression captured in the photograph and the worry lines already creasing his forehead suggested that the difference between their ages was much greater. The sense that these Amundsons were more familiar to her than they should have been struck her again and the more strongly as she studied Per. Even in a black and white photo, his hair and eyes were discernably darker than his brother's – Nolan had taken after him in that respect – but it wasn't Nolan she was reminded of, nor did Per much resemble his brother. His features were well balanced, and the shape of his nose and lips was pleasingly regular. Altogether he had been a handsome man. Unlike Magnus, he didn't look like his face had been roughhewn with an axe, he looked like he was ready for his screen test.

Myka closed the book, annoyed that she couldn't shake the . . . connectedness . . . she felt as she had looked at the picture. She and every other resident over the age of 30 had grown up seeing Amundson faces, listening to Amundson voices on news shows, commercials, and, during Nolan's brief political career, TV campaign spots with lots of red, white, and blue bunting. She even poured Amundson-produced milk over the occasional bowl of Amundson-produced cereal, but none of it explained the little jolt of recognition she felt seeing those family photos of Magnus and now, more so, of Per. She liked answers, and none of the Amundsons, including the dead ones, were giving her any.

Myka went into work the next morning with her copy of From Humble Beginnings and a growing anxiety that she wouldn't have the right Halloween candy for a potentially picky five-year-old. She hadn't had to buy Halloween candy in years – a dubious benefit of working to all hours – and now, having invited Helena and Christina over to show off Christina's costume, she dreaded having to decide between variety bags of candy when their differences in flavor were, for her, overshadowed by their cavity-causing, diabetes-encouraging commonality. She realized how ridiculous her anxiety was, and as she recklessly burned her mouth, drinking her grande Starbucks in cauterizing gulps, she considered the possibility that inviting Helena into her home was what really had her on edge. It wasn't as if she hadn't had a woman in her house since Andi. Except the fact was that she hadn't had a woman in her house, other than her mother and sister, since Andi. What would Helena make of her overpriced and underused kitchen, her obviously bought-as-a-set living room sofa and chairs? Myka recognized, with more apprehension than surprise, that she cared a lot, about what someone made of her house, made of her. This was no being blindsided by attraction at first sight, no kissing a woman who had been a stranger only hours before but it was no less powerful. Maybe it was even more powerful because it had had so much to work against, the case, Helena's resentment, her own uncertainty about Helena's truthfulness. She could not be falling for this woman. It wasn't in her plans.

Practically stomping into her cube, she caught Pete's head popping over a partition. As usual, his jaws were working on a donut or pastry, his post-breakfast breakfast snack, even as he spoke, "Did you just discover that there's a wrong side to a bed?"

"What's your favorite Halloween candy?" She all but barked it at him.

His eyebrows lifted. "I never saw that coming." As Myka rolled her eyes in impatience, he protested, "It's a very serious question. It's up there with asking me who I'd rather be stuck with on a desert island."

"Uninhabited island."

"You say it your way, I'll say it mine." He repeated admonishingly, "As I was saying, would I rather be stuck on the island with Shaggy or Scooby Doo?" He raised his hands to his temples and then arched them away, fingers spread. "You can't spring something like this on me in the morning, Mykes. It's too much."

Myka was convinced the only right answer was Velma but knew better than to say it. "About the candy, if you don't spontaneously combust from the dilemma, can you get back to me by tomorrow?" She looked longingly toward the break room and its promise of coffee, but after shrugging off her jacket, she went straight to Irene's office.

Irene greeted the news of Dave Lindholm's firing with a noncommittal "Hmmm" and rubbed at a spot on her glasses with a tissue when Myka told her that the Historical Society's Amundson archive had yet to produce anything enlightening. Feeling that all she had demonstrated to Irene was her own lack of productiveness, Myka rose from the chair, offering a self-consciously purposeful, "I'll dig harder."

Irene raised her hand to object. "You're digging hard enough. Why don't you let things rest, find something unrelated to do, and see what bubbles up. I'm with you on this – there's something with Helena Wells's arrival on the scene that we're not seeing." She flashed a rare smile. "So let's look away for a little while."

Looking consisted of completing old case files, answering queries from other field offices, and mentally scoring candies on the Myka Bering nutritional wasteland scale with zero being the equivalent of the landfill and ten an old spill of Exxon Valdez proportions. Forcing herself to take a lunch, she nibbled on a pre-packaged salad and read more of From Humble Beginnings. She had only a glimpse of orange-stained fingers before the book was taken from her. Then came the sound of pages being aggressively turned and, finally, a complaint. "There aren't enough pictures, and there aren't enough women in the ones it has."

Myka turned her chair around and faced Pete. "It's not a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar, you know."

He handed her back the book. "All's I'm saying is that the family is short on women."

"Thanks for the review," she said wryly.

"Anytime." He returned to his cube, and she searched the floor for the old Starbucks receipt she had been using as a bookmark. The hawk-like dive of Pete's nacho-cheese-coated fingers had sent it flying. Replacing it where she had been interrupted, she noticed how much of Magnus Amundson's family history she had left to finish. Her eyes drifted over the first few sentences of the next paragraph. My grandfather believed a family-owned business should be run by family, but he also believed a family shouldn't hand down a business like a feudal lord his property. He always used to say 'You don't truly own what you haven't earned." That sounded like something her father would say, though his long days and weekends spent trying to turn Bering & Sons into a thriving business had earned him only a tenuous ownership. Preventing the bookstore from defaulting on its loans had been a battle her parents were always on the verge of losing. Homely maxims coming from a family that was untold millions of dollars distant from bankruptcy were more self-congratulatory than helpful. She put the book aside. She had other reading she could do, namely additional reports from the Los Angeles field office on the operations or, more accurately, the lack thereof, that had turned a high-risk, high-reward investment into one that was a complete loss.

Later that night her mind was still full of doctored financial statements, phony press releases, and the modest apartments, subbing as office space, of the few hourly employees who handled the emails and calls the company received. Too full for more of From Humble Beginnings, but Myka reasoned that if she had made it through freshman physics and courses on tax law, she could get through another chapter. The chapter detailed Magnus's early years at Amundson Companies. As if he had written it or, more likely, dictated its writing in support of the book's title, Magnus spent not just paragraphs but pages describing every menial task he had been assigned. He mucked out manure on the family farms, cleaned the family trucks, and, when given a rare desk job, was assigned to the secretarial pool, typing letters and maintaining management's calendars. He knew better than to complain; his father's executive training program under Olaf had been even worse. It wasn't until she had nearly reached the end of the chapter, rubbing her eyes to stay awake, that Myka understood the purposes of Magnus's recounting of every boring, grubby, or disgusting job he had had at Amundson Companies. It was there in what seemed to be an off-hand comment: Per graduated from law school in the spring and spent the summer drafting contracts under the tutelage of the Companies' senior counsel. No job shoveling shit for him, which, in Magnus's eyes, meant that Per would never truly own the family firm because he hadn't earned it, not like the little brother in his hip waders. Earlier in the book, Marcus had provided a brief timeline of his career, noting that he became president of Amundson Companies after Per resigned for health reasons. Health reasons was a useful euphemism for being kicked to the curb, sacked, pushed out, dethroned. Myka put the book down, but, for the first time since starting it, wondered if she would be able to go to sleep. Promotion in the Amundson family was a matter of who had the sharpest fangs.

Since Pete had complained that her question about his favorite Halloween candy was "like the story about that Solomon dude having to choose between his two kids and the one he didn't choose was going to be banished or thrown over a cliff," Myka went candy shopping during a self-imposed lunch break the next day without his recommendation. She wouldn't have described it as mindless buying, but it wasn't far from grabbing whatever brightly-colored bag caught her eye. She bought too many, of course, enough for hordes of children, and when she arrived home with them, she searched fruitlessly for a bowl big enough to hold the candy until she remembered that, deep in a cupboard, she had a mixing bowl set that her mother had given her in an unwarranted bout of optimism that her oldest daughter might share her passion for baking. Myka dumped the candy in the largest of the bowls and set it prominently on the counter.

Seeing Helena tonight wasn't work-sanctioned, it wasn't even work-related. Myka wanted to see her, and though she knew she should regret surrendering to the impulse, she couldn't feel sorry. She felt impatient. Despite the fact that she had left for home at a time unheard of for her – not early but when normal people left work – only a few trick-or-treaters braved the cold wind and rain to ring her doorbell. She counted a superhero or two, a Disney princess, a bunny, and a more exotic animal (a parent holding the hand of a top-hatted and caped musician and hugging a baby costumed as a koala in a sling against his chest). Tracy even came by with Tyler, who had to show off his costume in the house because, as Tracy hotly defended her choice to her sister, who hadn't raised an objection, "Chancing frostbite is worth a mini Snickers? I'm not Dad, you know, believing that hypothermia toughens you up."

The trickle of visitors dwindled to a few teenagers who shambled up to Myka and held out plastic grocery bags that smelled like they had held sneakers or dirty socks. She repeatedly looked at her phone, hoping and not hoping that she would find a text from Helena or a missed call. When it was past 8:30, she started to wish for time to slow with the same intensity that she had earlier wished for it to speed up. At this hour, kids as young as Christina had eaten their ration of Halloween candy and were being sent to bed. It was all for the best if –

The doorbell rang, and Myka jumped to open the door. The doorbell had sounded different, louder, deeper, chimier, just different, and she knew that Helena was standing outside. Knowing that it was Helena didn't stop a dart of surprise from going through her when she saw the three of them, Helena, Christina, and Emmie, huddled against the cold, bags clutched in the kids' mittened fists. "Come in."

"Trick or treat," Christina and Emmie mumbled as they shot inside.

"I'm sorry," Helena said, "I didn't intend to be this late, but we had to drive over to Emmie's dad's house and then –"

"It's okay," Myka interrupted, "I'm just glad you're here."

"You say that now," Helena said warningly. Raising herself on tiptoe to peer over Myka's head, she called out, "Let's not tromp through Myka's house until she asks us to. Why don't we all stay together right here for a minute. Come on."

Christina and Emmie returned, their boots and their bags of candy thumping on the floor in rhythm. They were dressed almost identically in jeans and day-glo jackets, but the matching ended there as Christina had, perched askew on the top of her head, perhaps the worst thatch of blond hair that Myka had seen since her teenage experimenting with Clairol, and Emmie's forehead was obliterated by a wave of dark hair. Christina set down her bag and crossed her arms across her chest in an implicit challenge. "You don't know what we are. You'll never guess."

Christina was right about one thing. Myka didn't know what they were supposed to be. Wig models? Really bad wig models? She quirked an eyebrow at Helena in a silent plea for help, but Helena busied herself unwrapping a miniature Kit Kat with excruciating slowness. Myka looked again at the girls, an idea beginning to take shape. "I thought you were Christina," she began hesitantly, "but now I think you might be Emmie."

"I am Emmie!" Christina shouted in delight. She and Emmie gave each other a victory clap.

Holding out the candy bowl to the girls, Myka murmured to Helena, "What happened to the astronaut?"

Helena shrugged. "For months, she's been lobbying me for a puppy. Now a puppy will absolutely not do. It has to be a bunny or nothing at all."

"I'm guessing it's going to turn out to be 'nothing at all.'"

"You've guessed right." Helena perused the bowl and chose another Kit Kat. "I don't know which one of them came up with it, but by the beginning of the week, she and Emmie were adamant that pretending to be each other was the best idea ever. Kath raided her grandmother's basement, the 'emporium' her family calls it, because it has 50 years' worth of thrift store purchases, and found a couple of wigs, and I tried to put together identical outfits."

"So that explains why she's walking around with hair that looks like it's been literally put through a wringer."

"Yes, and very pleased with herself about it, too." Christina and Emmie were evaluating each other's candy selections from the bowl. After a long, wary parental look to ensure that there was no squall on the horizon, Helena asked, with assumed casualness, "Any developments that you would care to share?"

Some of her colleagues would consider that she had already crossed a line by inviting Helena into her home. Telling her about Tom Wagner's coming forward as a so-called whistleblower was a line she wouldn't cross. Not tonight, anyway. Putting the bowl back on the counter, Myka suggested, with the overly bright cheeriness of an HGTV interior designer, "Why don't I give you the ten-cent tour of the house?"

With resignation rather than the sarcasm Myka expected, Helena replied, "I guess that's a no, so lead on."

They left the girls behind in the living room, shaking candy out of their bags onto a coffee table, which fronted a sofa in a neutral color intended to hide stains and wear. Utility had been the living room's set selling point for Myka. Both it and the coffee table had stood up the rainy afternoons and Andi-less nights that Myka had spent curled up on the cushions, drinking coffee or mineral water and reading. Helena offered her the generous observation that the room looked cozy. Upstairs, she opened the doors to the two guest bedrooms, the smallest serving as her office, and Helena gave each a noncommittal nod. Myka hesitated before opening the door to the master bedroom. She wasn't the type to drape her clothes over the furniture or leave them strewn on the floor, but she wasn't always as careful about other things, coffee mugs she would bring to bed if she wanted to sip and read, nail clippers surrounded by crescents of fingernails and toenails, throat lozenges, and, of course, her bedside reading. What would Helena make of her books? She had an e-reader or two, but she was the daughter of a bookseller, and she loved the heft of a hardcover. Her current stack included a thriller (she avoided the ones featuring FBI agents), a book on current affairs (mainly untouched), a biography of Dickens, and, on top, From Humble Beginnings.

Helena picked it up but didn't open it. Myka said lightly, "It was recommended to me."

That earned her a wry smile. "Haven't you had enough of 'all things Amundson' by the end of the day?"

"It's been hard for me to put this investigation out of my mind." It was true, but Myka realized it sounded flirtatious, too. She had been drawn to Helena from the moment she had met her. The investigation had only complicated the attraction, not killed it. Despite the their-eyes-met-across-a-crowded-room quality to her relationship with Andi, Myka wasn't sure that it would have survived an initial obstacle more formidable than Sam Martino.

"I'm not convinced that's a compliment, but I'll take it as one," Helena said. She placed the book back on the stack.

They were standing so closely together that Myka felt their breaths commingling although their bodies maintained a separation that wasn't quite illusory. Then even that was gone, and Helena's hands were on her face, drawing her down, pulling her in. Helena's kiss was no less intentional than their first one, the stage kiss she had initiated both to deter and deceive Nate Phillips, but that was the only similarity. This kiss was demanding and passionate, tender and searching. It was like tasting all the ice cream flavors and trying to decide which would top her cone. Impossible. All Myka could do was respond, and she did, all thoughts of what she and Helena were to each other outside this room disappearing. What mattered was what they were sharing now, and as Helena's hands dropped to cup her ass and hold her closer, Myka pressed in. Helena's lips started to pull away from hers, and Myka surprised herself with a little whine of protest. She pursued, the tip of her tongue seeking entrance again, but Helena bowed head and moved her hands up to rest on Myka's hips.

"We have to stop before I entirely forget myself," Helena said breathlessly.

Myka stepped back, but Helena reached for her hand. Myka let her take it. The hours of doubt and guilt and self-recrimination would come. She hadn't done something she had promised herself that she wouldn't do. She had done something that it had never occurred to her that she would do. You didn't get involved with the subject of an investigation, yet she had. A kiss couldn't be just a kiss, not in their situation.

There was a loud thud below, and children's voices rose in apprehension. "Let's go see what they broke," Helena said resignedly. "I hope it's replaceable."

Myka followed her out of the bedroom, not caring if the furniture in her living room was in splinters. She wanted to stay where they were and keep kissing. She would tell herself, later, that it would never happen again, but she already knew it was a lie.