Balance of Power

    That will surely be true, Senator, if you pass this legislation. Lara's gaze swept the other senators, and then returned to Harshman. You question my qualifications to speak to this issue. In one sense, my qualifications are no different than those of Felice Serrano, my sister Mary, the Blanchard family or Kara Johnson. None of us are lawyers. Our expertise is in grief and loss . . .

    "Why does Harshman bother?" Fasano murmured. "Has he totally forgotten who she is?"

    But I do have one other credential, Lara continued. In my former life as a reporter, I covered the Congress. And so, rather early in my career, I immersed myself in the phenomenon known as "special interest legislation."

    This provision, to be plain, is a particularly squalid piece of special interest legislation, which revictimizes victims and insults the memory of those they loved.

    "What you've just witnessed," Fasano told Macdonald Gage, "is the sound bite which heads the evening news. Paul Harshman's finest hour."

* * *

    "In fairness to Palmer," Clayton told the President, "he handed her this moment. He could have tried to sneak this through without you knowing."

    On the screen, Lara continued, If this Committee cares about their loss, and shares their grief, it will protect them from this injustice.

    Kerry shrugged. "Chad chose to do Fasano's bidding, then tried to maintain his 'honor.' So now he's about to pay for both."

* * *

Propelled by her sense of outrage, Lara turned to Palmer.

    "Accordingly, Senator Palmer, we request that before this committee votes on whether to send the bill to the full Senate, you hold a separate vote on whether it should immunize gun manufacturers from victims seeking justice.

    "If you do, I cannot help but believe that this shameful provision will never reach the Senate floor."

    From the platform, Palmer held her gaze. A month ago he had been in her wedding party. Now, in her imaginings, he felt too much shame to look away.

    Beneath the table, Mary, who had danced with Chad at the wedding, touched her sister's hand.

* * *

"It's so tangled," Lara said to Kerry.

    The time was close to midnight. Lara had stayed up late, listening to Mary's fears about the lawsuit, trying to ease the strain beneath the surface of their truce. Now Lara could not sleep.

    "You and Mary?" Kerry asked.

    "That. All of it, really. Facing Chad today, wondering why he's doing this, and how he could. Speaking for Felice Serrano, when I'm also speaking for you in a power struggle with Fasano. It's like our fam ily was murdered, and somehow Mary and I—and you and I—got sucked down the rabbit hole."

    Lying beside her in the dark, Kerry pondered what to say. "A rabbit hole," he answered softly, "where we make up the rules as we go, and real becomes unreal. Until no one knows what's real anymore."

    Lara was quiet. "Are we real?" she asked.

    Kerry drew her closer. "I want to be. Again."

    After a moment, to his surprise, she kissed him. The surprise was not in the kiss itself, but the nature of it, and what this told him without words.

    Gently, for the first time since the murders, Kerry and Lara made love.

NINETEEN

On the morning of the hearing before Judge Gardner Bond, Sarah and Lenihan were greeted by reporters, satellite trucks, and angry demonstrators on both sides, yelling at each other across a pathway to the federal building maintained by two lines of uniformed police. United States Marshals guarded the door to Bond's courtroom, and the wooden benches overflowed with more reporters and partisans. But at least the starkly modern courtroom was quieter, its sounds muted by decorum and dissipated by the majestic ceilings which distinguished the Federal District Court. Perhaps, Sarah reflected, justice, like mercy, was best hoped for in airy spaces.

    But her own hopes diminished within moments of Judge Bond's appearance on the bench. After curtly noting Lenihan and Sarah's presence, and that of John Nolan and Harrison Fancher, Bond said, "The Court will begin by denying plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction."