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nervous, he crossed the room to lay a palm to her brow. “You’re cold.” Instinctively he took her hands between his and began to rub. “You’ve got a chill or something. I’ll take you home. You should lie down.”

    “Andrew . . .” She was going to have to say it, say it out loud. And her throat was raw on the words. “ The Dark Lady . It’s fake.”
    “What?” He’d begun to pat her head. Now his hand froze there. “The bronze? In Florence?”
    “The retesting. The results are in. The corrosion growth is wrong, the radiation figures are wrong. Ponti, in Rome. He supervised the tests himself.”
    He sat on the edge of the desk, knowing brotherly head pats were not going to soothe this sickness away. “How do you know?”
    “Giovanni—he just called. He wasn’t supposed to. If Mother finds out she could fire him for it.”
    “Okay.” Giovanni wasn’t his concern at the moment. “Are you sure his information’s accurate?”
    “I don’t want to think so.” She crossed her arms over her chest, digging her fingers into her biceps. Squeezing, releasing, squeezing, releasing. “He wouldn’t have contacted me otherwise. Mother called him and Elise and Richard Hawthorne in to tell them. Vincente too. I imagine she blasted them. They’re going to say I screwed up.” Her voice broke, causing her to shake her head fiercely as if to deny the emotion. “Just as she predicted.”
    “Did you?”
    She opened her mouth to deny that too, just as fiercely. But closed it again, pressing her lips together. Control, she ordered herself. At the very least she needed control. “I don’t see how. I ran the tests. I followed procedure. I documented the results. But I wanted it, Andrew, maybe I wanted it too much.”
    “I’ve never known you to let what you want get in the way of what is.” He couldn’t stand to see her look so stricken. Of the two of them, she’d always been the stronger. Both of them had counted on it. “Could there have been some technical glitch, faulty equipment?”
    She nearly laughed. “We’re talking about Elizabeth’s pride and joy here, Andrew.”
    “Machines break down.”
    “Or the people inputting data into those machines make mistakes. Ponti’s team could have made one.” She pushed away from the desk now, and though her legs trembled, began to pace. “It’s no more far-fetched than my making one. I need to see my data again, and the results. I need to see his. I need to see The Dark Lady .”
    “You’ll need to talk to her.”
    “I know.” She stopped, turned to the window, but saw only the dark. “I’d call her now if it wouldn’t damage Giovanni’s confidence. I’d rather get it over with than wait until she contacts me.”
    “You were always one to take your medicine in one gulp. I’m a big believer in putting off forever what you don’t want to face today.”
    “There’s no avoiding it. When the results are made public, it’s going to ripple down. I’ll be either a fool or a fraud, and one’s as bad as the other. Vincente will find some spin to put on it, but it won’t stop the press. She was right about that. It’ll affect Standjo, her, me.” She turned back to face him. “It’s going to affect the Institute.”
    “We can handle it.”
    “This is my mess, Andrew. Not yours.”
    He walked over, put his hands on her shoulder. “No.” He said it simply, and had tears burning the backs of her eyes. “We’ll stand together, just like always.”
    She let out a breath, leaned into him and let herself be comforted. But she thought their mother might give her no choice. If it came down to the Institute or her daughter, there was no doubt in Miranda’s mind which would take precedence.

eight
    T he midnight wind was bitter as a scorned woman and just as bad-tempered. Ryan didn’t mind it. He found it invigorating as he walked the three crosstown blocks from where he’d parked his car.
    Everything he needed was under his coat in pouches and pockets or in the small briefcase he carried. If the cops stopped him for some reason, and took a look, he’d be in a cage before he could exercise his civil right for a phone call. But that was just part of the thrill.
    God, he would miss it, he thought, and strode along with the eager step of a man hurrying to meet a lover. The planning stage was over, and so was that aspect of his life. Now the execution was approaching, his last. He wanted to file every detail in his mind so that when he was