James drew an aggrieved breath, but she could feel him calculating on the other end of the line. Once all was said and done, she had the power to make him keep his word. If nothing else, she’d threaten to turn state’s evidence, the last best refuge of the woman scorned.

“Of course, darling,” he said finally. “We’re in this together. You know that.”

She felt faint with relief.

“What were you doing looking at the books anyway, silly? You could end up leaving an electronic trail if you’re not careful. And I need to hear about this problem you found. You probably just misread the numbers,” she said.

“I certainly hope you’re right. But I don’t want to talk about the details over the telephone.”

“So let’s meet. It’s been too long. I miss you.”

“This mess with Whitney is screwing everything up. I can’t leave the house. The police could be watching me. The press definitely are.”

“Why the police? You’re the grieving stepfather. They should be bringing you a cup of hot tea.”

“Are you kidding? They’d love to see me trip up. Melanie Vargas was all over me about the timing last night. Where was I, when did I call the police…?”

Patricia caught an undercurrent of something in his tone. “I thought you were at that Guggenheim thing,” she said suspiciously.

“Yes. Yes, I was.”

“So why was she asking you, then?”

“Who knows? You know how these people are. I’m surprised she didn’t ask you.”

“Let her. I was home with the doggies.” Patricia glanced over at Vuitton, who was napping. Coco was at the doggy shrink. Poor thing’s eating disorder was acting up again, the way it did every year as January 1 approached. They lived in a building that barred dogs weighing more than twelve pounds because they took up too much space in the elevators. The annual weigh-ins were disastrous for Coco’s body image, even though Patricia constantly reassured her there was no chance she’d hit the limit. Coco was tiny-barely eight pounds!

“So they searched?” James asked.

Patricia was distracted, her mind wandering to the bothersome question of where he’d been last night. “Hmm? What?”

“What did they search? They didn’t ask about the school’s computers, did they?”

“No. And I don’t see why they would. It was just the girls’ lockers they were interested in.”

“But you’d gone through Whitney’s-”

“Yes, of course!” she exclaimed irritably. “I came in at five to be sure nobody would see me. I went through everything, like you told me, all right? I left the innocuous stuff where they would find it so it wouldn’t look too obvious.”

“What do you mean? Was there anything you removed? Anything that wasn’t innocuous?”

Did he really have so little idea what his stepdaughter had been up to? He was surely playing dumb. After all, if he didn’t already know what was in there, why have her search? But she wouldn’t tell him what she’d found. She didn’t trust him these days; she needed something up her sleeve.

“No,” Patricia lied. “Just the usual teenager crap.”

“What about the other lockers? Did they find anything?”

“Yes indeed. As a matter of fact, they found heroin in Carmen Reyes’s locker.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well.” He chuckled. “That’s fabulous. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just did.”

“It makes so much sense. The little wetback with drugs in her locker. Just like I told them it would be. Now we can force them to stop investigating. Every second they’re out there poking around, you know, we’re at risk. And we don’t need any problems before Friday.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“I’m so glad we’re a team, darling.”

THEY AGREED THAT James would try to slip away and meet Patricia at her place later. The hours until then would be difficult ones. Normally she enjoyed the anticipation of waiting for a rendezvous with James. But not today; this security breach he was hinting about had her worried. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Had somebody really tampered with the second set of books? Was that possible, or was James lying? Testing her, maybe even screwing around with things behind her back and screaming bloody murder to cover his own tracks? Much as she adored him, she wouldn’t put anything past him. James was treacherous. She loved that about him; it was exhilarating. He really kept her on her toes. Patricia tapped her impeccably manicured fingernails on the desktop, thinking. She’d better damn well get to the bottom of the problem and figure out her next move. Here in the rarefied air at the tippy-top, it was play or get played.

And damn that Carmen Reyes, too, disappearing at just the wrong moment.

THE DRIVE BACK to Melanie’s office was slow because of holiday traffic, but not slow enough to come to terms with the evidence she held in her hand. A glassine bag, stamped GOLPE in red ink, sealed inside a clear plastic evidence envelope. Unlike the empty glassines recovered from Whitney Seward’s bedroom, this one still held its stash of grainy white powder. On the outside of the evidence envelope, Ray-Ray Wong had neatly printed his initials, the date, and the place of discovery: “Miss Holbrooke’s School. Locker of Carmen Reyes.”

Why was Melanie so disappointed? So what if Carmen was the one who’d corrupted her friends, who’d provided the heroin that killed them? What did Melanie care? She hadn’t even known the girl. Too often in life, the ugly, cynical explanation was the right one. She should just grow up and get used to that.

Ray-Ray dropped Melanie in front of her building and headed off to the DEA lab to get the heroin tested. She ran for the door, the bitter wind cutting right through her coat. The sky was an ugly grayish white, and she felt exhausted, cold to the bone, depressed. This case was pretty much over, and she didn’t like the way it was turning out, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Juan Carlos Peralta had been remanded to custody and was refusing to talk any further. They’d seized heroin from him and from Carmen’s locker. The only missing link-literally-was Carmen herself, who presumably would be found and arrested in short order. Juvie charges, but still enough to wreck her life and break her father’s heart. Melanie told herself she should just accept the evidence the way it was coming in. Yet something didn’t feel right.

There was a yellow Post-it stuck to her office door with a virtually illegible message scrawled on it. Melanie picked it off and squinted at it. Her best guess was: “Made arrest, 6th Floor, Dan.” Man, he had terrible handwriting. And, mierda, she was infatuated. Because learning that new fact about Dan made her feel all warm and gooey inside. His handwriting sucks, how cute! Barf. Melanie hung her coat on the rack, slapped herself lightly on both cheeks, and muttered, “Snap out of it,” under her breath. Only then did she go looking for him in the interview rooms on the sixth floor.

Dan and Bridget Mulqueen were debriefing a strange-looking kid Melanie didn’t recognize. Pale and pimply, with long brown dreadlocks, his face riddled with eyebrow and lip piercings, an angry line of Chinese characters tattooed down his left cheek. The second Melanie stuck her head in the room, Dan leaped to his feet and came outside to speak with her.

“Who’s that?” she asked. Dan pulled the door shut behind him and came to stand beside her-way too close to her, in fact. As if she didn’t already have enough trouble ignoring his looks, his height, the clean way he smelled. She took a step backward.

“Name’s Trevor Leonard,” Dan said. “We picked him up about an hour ago on a failure to appear. Kid had an outstanding warrant for wire fraud from some Internet hacking scam. Heard about it from Brianna Meyers’s mother.”