Edge

cover stories is unsexy, if not boring, and discourages further inquiry. Which is, of course, the point.
    I checked in, noted nothing out of the ordinary with the desk clerk and a bellboy, then returned to the SUV, seeing nothing that aroused suspicion in the parking lot either.
    I opened the driver’s side door and announced, “Bring your things with you.”
    “I thought we weren’t staying here,” Maree said.
    “For a little while. We’re switching vehicles.”
    “You think that’s necessary?” Ryan asked.
    “Just a precaution.” If there’s a mantra in the personal security field, that’s it.
    “There a hot tub?” Maree asked. “Preferably with a cute masseur named Raoul?”
    “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay inside,” I repeated.
    Maree’s look silently reiterated her comment about my attitude as a tour guide.
    I ushered them quickly into the two-bedroom suite, tactically the best in the Hillside Inn for defense since there was no sniper vantage point outside. Joanne looked around blankly. Her sister seemed genuinely disappointed at the small, sparse place. Maybe she thought the federal government should put some stimulus money into her accommodations. Like a SWAT officer Ryan opened doors to bathrooms and closets. Then he went to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain to look outside at a blank wall about thirty feet away—the side of the banquet hall. There was something defiant about this gesture, as if he half expected to see Loving on the other side of the glass.
    He seemed disappointed to find gray cinder block rather than a target he could gun down. Still, he said, “Good choice. Defensible.”
    I nodded.
    “Oooh, can I have that room?” Maree asked, pointing to the larger. I shrugged. The rooms were just for showers and a nap, if they wanted. I wasn’t going to be using one. The others agreed and the young woman stepped toward it.
    I said, “The phones in there don’t work.”
    Her step slowed. I’d had a feeling that she’d wanted to have a longer, and private, conversation with her friend Andrew. But she gave an exaggerated pout and said, “Then you’ll have to arrange for my masseur, Mr. Tour Guide.” She winked and vanished.
    With a tired glance after his sister-in-law, Ryan lifted his cold phone. “My boss?”
    “Sure. Just nothing about the location.”
    A nod. He took his backpack and stepped into the other bedroom, dialing. He swung the door closed with his foot.
    Leaving me in the living room of the suite with somber Joanne. She clicked the TV on, flipped through the channels. There was nothing about the assault on her home, only a report about the false alarm of a shooting at George Mason University.
    “How did they keep it out of the news?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” I told her.
    Though I did: Aaron Ellis, my boss. He had never been a shepherd, like me. His background was administration in federal security agencies and he was experienced at congressional liaisons, budgetaryinfighting . . . and media relations. When Abe Fallow died, six years ago, there was some talk of me taking over the organization; I was Abe’s protégé. But it would have meant less time in the field and I didn’t want that. So the powers that be shopped around and found Ellis, who’d been doing some good work at Langley.
    He didn’t completely get the subtleties of what shepherds did but when it came to gutting a news story that might work to our disadvantage, he was the man for the job. Though he couldn’t completely eradicate accounts of an assault in a quiet suburban neighborhood he could delay the report and turn it into something like a break-in gone bad.
    Of course, Ellis’s skills were as mysterious to me as mine were to him and I never quite figured out his magic. I supposed part of his talent was rooted in finding an edge too, the same sword that Henry Loving used. And I did that too, on occasion.
    As does nearly everyone, of course, from time to time.
    Joanne stared unseeing at the screen, her shoulders slumped. Her face was free of makeup. She wore only a watch and her wedding and engagement ring, while Maree, I recalled, was decked out in a flare of funky jewelry. Joanne examined one of her broken nails.
    I stepped to a window, gazed out through the curtain at the cinder blocks and placed a call to Aaron Ellis. I gave him an update on our progress, though I didn’t share with him where we were and which of the three or four dozen government safe