library researchers heading from one building to the other. Instead, my footfalls echoed eerily as I passed framed posters from the Library’s many collections. The only other sound was the steady hiss of the air circulating through the tunnel. Otherwise I was alone, unable to see around the corkscrew curve ahead of me or behind me. It wasn’t until I heard a child’s laughter and the chatter of her mother and father that I realized I’d been holding my breath— imagining shadows and wisps of voices, and hearing the echo of Ian’s remark yesterday that he was being followed.
I was relieved when a set of double doors spilled me onto the upper level of the visitor center with its bustle and noise and crowds. Straight ahead, two men in fire engine red blazers sat behind a large desk. The din on the lower level sounded like an army massing for battle and I leaned over the railing to see what was going on. An enormous white plaster cast of the bronze Freedom statue that stood atop the Capitol dome dominated a light-filled marble room where hundreds of people waited in lines for tours and tickets. Above me through a fretted skylight was the Capitol dome as close as if I were on the roof of the House of Representatives.
A tour guide in a red vest told me I was standing next to the desk for House visitors. The Senate desk was at the opposite end of the corridor.
Summer Lowe spotted me before I reached it. Today her tawny hair was done up in a sleek chignon and she wore a vintage black-and-white houndstooth checked suit with peep-toe heels. She would have looked at home on the set of a Bogart film.
She took my arm and pulled me away from the desk.
“Come on,” she said under her breath. “Ladies’ room.”
Before I could reply, she pushed me into the handicapped stall and followed me in, closing the door behind us and sliding her oversized canvas tote off her shoulder. She reached in and pulled out something.
A Senate ID on a lanyard. I looked at the photo. Someone named Lana Davidson. We looked vaguely alike.
“Put it on and give me your jacket.”
“Why are we doing this?” I asked.
She stuffed my jacket in her bag. “So you don’t have to sign in. No one knows you’re here, except me.”
“And presumably Lana Davidson.”
“She owed me a favor. Luckily I’d seen what you look like. This’ll do.”
“Does Lana use a cane?”
Summer’s eyes flickered briefly to my leg. “No, but I’m counting on not running into someone who knows her. As for everyone else noticing, anyone can have a temporary injury and you don’t drag your foot around like a real cripple. Looks like you just use it for balance.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “That was sort of crude, wasn’t it? Sorry.”
I eyed her. “Where are we going?”
“The Capitol. My boss’s hideaway. Here’s how we’re going to do this.” She reached again into her tote bag, pulling out a sheaf of papers and a softbound book with a green cover that she handed to me.
“Lana Davidson and I are going to leave here and take the escalator to the Capitol. There’ll be a bunch of Capitol Hill police by the escalator. They expect to see you wearing either a stick-on visitor’s pass or a Hill ID. Otherwise you wouldn’t be going anywhere. Once we get past them, no one is going to give you a second look. Just act like you own the place and we’ll be fine.”
Just act like I owned the U.S. Capitol. I read what was written on the cover of the book she’d given me. “S. 576. A bill to provide rules for the modification or disposition of certain assets by real estate mortgage investment conduits pursuant to division A—”
Summer shook my arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
We left the ladies’ room and headed down a corridor with signs pointing to the Capitol. As she warned me, at the escalator four Capitol Hill police officers watched everyone come and go as they talked among themselves.
Maybe it was my nerves showing or maybe it was the fact that one of them nudged the other to check out the two of us—guys ogling girls—but Summer suddenly said in a loud voice, “It’s going to be in markup next week, but God knows when they’ll get it to the floor. If it does pass, the Senate version is so different from the House we’ll probably end up in reconciliation, anyway.”
The officers were still watching.
“Why don’t you talk your boss into waiting until you get more support?” I said. “You’ve got a year and a half before sine die. Bring it up during the second session.”
Summer didn’t reply, but her mouth twitched like she was trying to control her expression. She waited until we entered the dimly lit Crypt, which had originally been planned as George Washington’s burial place.
“Not bad, Lana. Where did you learn the inside baseball stuff about the legislative process?”
“Thanks for the curveball. Working for a small environmental nonprofit a few years ago. Not one you heard of. My boss sent me to hearings and markups, or else I’d stop by one of the galleries to watch a vote,” I said, as she whisked me around the corner to a set of worn marble stairs in a dim corridor. “Yeah, I know. I could have just turned on C-SPAN. But it’s not the same as being here.”
We entered the Capitol Rotunda and I caught my breath. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I watch
Summer grinned. “I guess I underestimated you.”
“You wouldn’t be the first.” I stared up at Brumidi’s fresco
“Let’s go.” Her voice was urgent once again. “I can’t be gone long. Someone’s going to miss me and ask where I’ve been. We haven’t got much time.”
She led me down a corridor into the small Senate Rotunda with its columned arcade surrounding a spectacular crystal chandelier.
“You know that chandelier used to be in a vaudeville theater?” she said as we turned down another hallway.
“No. I didn’t.”
“The things you learn working here. Turn left.”
We raced down a corridor of private rooms that was well away from any public tour. Summer pulled a key out of her jacket pocket and stopped in front of a nondescript door with a sign on the wall that read S-206. I’d heard about senators’ hideaways and what did and didn’t go on inside. There were the legitimate reasons—a quiet place to get work done away from constituents and staff or to hold a meeting. Some hideaways had sofas or daybeds, convenient for when the Senate was in session all night and it was too far to walk back to the Dirksen or Russell or Hart office buildings between votes. That was the aboveboard stuff. Then there was the hanky-panky, most of which involved alcohol and sex.
Summer opened the door. “After you.”
Senator Cameron Vaughn’s hideaway was a mixture of personal and patriotic, but it was a restful retreat rather than a working office. The walls were painted butter yellow; the woodwork was white. A primitive carved wooden statue of an eagle dominated a fireplace mantel with an American flag folded in the shape of a triangle behind it. The fireplace itself had been freshly laid with firewood and the room held a faint tinge of wood smoke. Silver-framed pictures of Vaughn’s good-looking wife and four teenage children adorned the walls and sat atop a credenza, which held bottles of top-drawer alcohol. Law books filled the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. A yellow-and-white-striped sofa and two patterned upholstered armchairs were grouped around a coffee table, which had a box of Cohiba cigars sitting on it. Through a tall slim window I caught a slivered view of the Mall with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.
“Have a seat,” Summer said. “How about a drink?”
She dropped into one of the armchairs and kicked off her shoes. I took the sofa.
“No, thanks; I’m fine.”
“I’ll have one, if you don’t mind.” She jumped up and padded over to the credenza, where she fixed herself a gin and tonic. I hadn’t noticed the minifridge tucked inside.
She flung herself into the chair again and put her feet up on the coffee table, crossing her legs. I thought she seemed nervous, keyed up.
“Why’d we have to meet like this?” I asked.
