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“What?” I asked.

“I guess getting hooked up with vampires runs in the family.” He turned away, keeping his face to himself so that whatever he was thinking, I couldn’t see it.

I looked at the face on the wall. It was Jason’s face, but if the artist had captured Jedediah correctly, then there was no humor in the eyes, no smile always tugging at the corner of that mouth. Same face, but a very different person.

Peterson came up beside us. He gazed up at the portrait, too. “The family resemblance is almost disturbing, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I don’t mind,” Jason said.

“I’ve cleared the way for you to see your father, Mr. Schuyler. I’ll accompany you up with a second man. The hospital staff have already caught two reporters trying to sneak upstairs. I’ve asked them to treat your father’s privacy as they would the governor’s. I think that should keep the press away.”

“Thank you,” Jason said. He was still looking at the painting when he said it. He turned and gave Peterson a grin. It filled his eyes with laughter, and changed the face to…Jason’s face.

Peterson looked almost startled, then smiled back. Jason had that effect on people.

Jason reached for my hand, and I helped him find it. The smile faded around the edges, and his eyes looked almost as stern as the ones in the portrait. “Let’s get this over with.”

We went for the elevator, but there was already a suit holding the door, and the admin for the hospital. Apparently, she was going to ride up with us. The rich and powerful really are different, or at least they’re treated better.

Jason’s hand was a little warm to the touch, not sweat, just nerves. He was a lycanthrope, which meant that nerves could bring on the change. He had control, really good control, but his body temperature was rising with his anxiety. That wasn’t good.

For the first time I wondered what would happen if Jason shifted in front of his family. Surely they knew he was a werewolf. Didn’t they?

The media would know once they checked the website for Guilty Pleasures. It listed not just the usual stats for strippers but if they were vampires, or wereanimals, and what animal you could watch them shift into. If the media stayed interested enough in the story, they’d out him.

The nice admin was talking to Jason, who was making small noises at her and not hearing a thing. I actually looked across him to her and said, “It’s very nice of you to help his father like this.”

“Any friend of the governor’s is a very special guest of ours,” she said, smiling.

Jason said in a voice bitter enough to hurt, “My father isn’t a friend of the governor’s.”

The woman looked at me, then at Peterson. “I thought…”

“The governor felt that since Mr. Schuyler’s resemblance to his own sons was the problem with the media, the least we could do was make certain his father’s last days weren’t hounded by the press.”

“The resemblance is uncanny,” she said. “Even standing this close to you I’d swear you were one of the governor’s sons.”

“Jedediah was a busy boy,” Jason said, softly.

“Excuse me?” she said.

Jason shook his head. “Nothing.”

I tried small talk, never my best thing. How long could the elevator ride be? “Jason didn’t know the twins would be in town, so the press caught us off guard. With the wedding and everything, it got wild. I don’t envy the real Summerlands if this is typical for the way they’re treated by the press.”

“It’s gotten worse since the presidential bid,” the other, younger suit said.

Peterson gave him a look. The look said clearly, Don’t talk. The younger suit stopped talking and did his best to both stand very straight and ready and vanish into the corner. Not easy to do at the same time, but he tried.

“Of course, of course,” the admin said.

The doors opened, and we got to step out into a hospital corridor. No matter how nice the hospital, it is still a hospital. They’d chosen nice paint, a color that was actually cheerful, but the smells hit you—that antiseptic smell they use to try to hide the smell