It didn’t.

So what? Neal thought. Despite the somewhat distasteful fact that I’m going to vote for whatever Democrat is running, what’s all this have to do with me?

“There is, however, a problem.”

Which is where I come in.

“The problem is Allie.”

Neal turned a few pages of the file and saw a picture of a teenaged girl. She had shiny blond hair and blue eyes and looked as if she belonged on a magazine cover.

Kitteredge stared at the model of Haridan as he said, “Actually, Alison always has been the problem.”

He seemed lost in his thoughts, or in some more happy memory on board his boat.

Neal said, “But specifically now?”

“Allie has run away.”

Yeah, okay, so we’ll go get her. But there was something else going on here, Neal sensed. Things were a little too tense. He looked at Graham and didn’t see a clue. He looked at Ed, but Ed wouldn’t look back.

“Any idea where?” Neal finally asked.

“She was last seen in London,” Ed said. “A former schoolmate saw her there over a spring-break trip. He tried to speak to her, but she ran away from him. It’s all there in your file.”

Neal looked it over. This schoolmate, a Scott Mackensen, had seen her about three weeks ago. “What do the British cops say?”

Kitteredge stared harder at the boat. “No police, Mr. Carey.”

This time, Ed did look at Neal-hard. Neal buried his face in the file, then asked, “Alison is seventeen years old?”

Nobody answered.

Neal looked through the file some more. “A seventeen-year-old girl has been gone for over three months and nobody has called the police?”

Another few seconds of silence and Kitteredge would actually will himself onto the model boat: a tiny model captain on a toy boat.

Levine said, “The Senator was reluctant to risk publicity.” Less reluctant to risk his daughter.