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“What are you looking at?” he asked her, switching to a less volatile subject

“That photograph above the sideboard I’ve never paid attention to it before When was it taken?” Lauren wassmall talk now, but the picture,The faces and figures were slightly blurred, as if the ie had been blown up fro—a party or picnic—on the front steps of the ranch house

Rising with her coffee, Lauren ure was un in the center of the photo, dressed in hunting clothes and holding a glass in one hand, was a san

“He was still president then,” her father said “So, and my dad volunteered to host a picnic here afterward See, that’s reat man I was still a pup, not even o into politics That’s why I hung the picture, to remind me”

Lauren studied the photo Her father would have been about twenty She recognized the wavy blond hair and slightly receding chin His parents, both of the on the other side of the president—Ferguson Prescott, short and thickset, with a bristling h to cut steel; his pale wife, Edith, looking drained as always Ferg had nant five times Only Garn had survived

There were other people in the photo—neighbors, party dignitaries, and Secret Service agents skulking in the background At the edge of the picture, a tall, slender young wolasses It appeared she’d e but hadn’t h

“Who’s that woman?” Lauren asked

“The dark one? Nobody Just the maid”

“She’s beautiful Look at those dark eyes, and those high cheekbones She could have been a model What ever happened to her?”

Prescott shrugged “Who knows? After this picture was taken, I went away to school When I came home for my mother’s funeral, she was here, but the next tione I never asked about her Why should I?” Prescott slathered butter on another slice of toast “That fund-raiser tootiable?”

“What do youher coffee cup on the table

“I don’t have the ti with you, Lauren So I’ you want, within reason of course Go to the fund-raiser with me, and it’s yours”

Lauren took ain, her father’s offerthe so she wanted?

But what did she want? The idea—so bold that it kicked her pulse into high gear—sprang out of nowhere

“Only this one fund-raiser, right?”