Serena checked her watch, feeling lonely and distraught. The memories did that. They made her long for a drink, too, and that was dangerous. It was after six o'clock. Maggie had gone out into the rain a half hour ago to get dinner for the two of them. Stride was missing in action. He had called in the early afternoon to say he was on the scene of a bank robbery across town, playing gopher for the Feebs.

She wanted him back, and she wanted him to stay away.

Even so, her heart raced when she heard footsteps in the hall. She made a special effort to look calm and disinterested. Which was a lie.

But it wasn't Stride. Maggie breezed into the conference room in a damp raincoat, balancing a pizza box in one hand and two liters of Diet Coke in the other. The tiny Chinese cop grinned at her.

"Special delivery. And it's sausage, so don't give me any shit about vegetarian pizza or whatever it is you eat out west."

Serena laughed and opened the box, letting the aroma of mozzarella and seasoned pork waft into the room. Maggie filled two plastic cups with pop, then grabbed a slice and sat down, leaning her chair back until it was propped against the wall. Her feet dangled above the floor.

"Got the case solved?" she asked.

"I still think Graeme did it," Serena said, smiling.

"Yeah, it was a lot easier that way. Any word from Stride? Guppo called and said the boss was heading back here."

"No, nothing from Jonny." Serena took a slice of pizza and put it down without biting into it.

Maggie took a long swallow of Coke and then, watching Serena, her eyes narrowed with concern. "You okay?"

"Sure, why?"

Maggie tugged on her eyelid. "Glassy eyes. Tears. What's up?"

"Oh, that," Serena said. She shook her head. "It's nothing. Thinking about the bad old days. Something about this case, it gets to me."

That happens to all of us."

"Even a hard-ass like you?" Serena asked, teasing her.

"Me, no, I'm a rock," Maggie said. "Come on, try the pizza, it's delicious."

Serena picked up the slice again and took a tentative bite. She realized she was hungry, and she began to take larger bites, finishing the first piece and reaching for another. She washed it down with a drink, belched long and loud, and began giggling uncontrollably.

"Nice," Maggie said, straight-faced. "Do you take requests?"

Serena started laughing again and was afraid the Coke would wind up coming out her nose. Maggie lost it, too, and the two of them spent five minutes cracking up before they ran out of breath. Serena wound up hot and sweaty. She wiped her brow and used a napkin to blow her nose.

"You are too much," she told Maggie.

"Thank you," Maggie said, in her best Elvis voice. "Thank you very much."

"Oh, God, don't get me started again." Serena pushed her hair out of her face. She closed her eyes and propped her chair against the wall, like Maggie's.

"Tell me something," Maggie said.

Serena was mellow now, her defenses down. "Sure."

"Was that real smoke I saw coming off you and Stride in the airport?"

Serena flopped her chair back on the floor with a bang and opened her eyes. Maggie had a broad grin spread across her golden face. "What?"

"Oh, don't play innocent with me, girl. You know he wants you. Stride couldn't hide it if he tried. And it seems to me you want him, too."

"Maggie, he's married. And we just met."

Maggie took another piece of pizza. "Call it marriage if you want, but it's long gone and dead. The Big D is around the corner. Thank God. And don't get hung up on time, kiddo. I mean, is there a right time? A week? A month? It only took me about a day to fall in love with Stride."

"You?"

Maggie nodded. "Oh, yeah. I had it bad for years."

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened. He was in a real love match back then. When she died, I took my chance. But we were made to be friends, not lovers. Fortunately, I met Eric eventually, and he managed to break through all my cynical wisecracks, the little shit. And I think it made Stride kind of jealous, which was a nice bonus."

Serena gave her a small smile. "I admit, I'm very attracted to him."

"So go for it."

"Yeah, right. Not so simple. They don't call me Barbed Wire back home for nothing. I've got skeletons in the closet Big, ugly ones."

"You won't scare him off," Maggie said.

"Watch me."

"Do you want to sleep with him?"

"Sure I do, but I'm not going to."

"I thought everyone in Vegas had a great sex life," Maggie said.

"I've got a terrific sex life, but I'm usually alone."

Maggie laughed again, long and hard. "Hey, whatever works. But I can attest that with the right guy, there's no substitute."

Serena scrunched up her face. She wasn't convinced. "I just met him," she repeated.

"Fight it all you want, girl," Maggie said, sighing. "But it pisses me off, you know, that I tried to turn him on for years, and all you had to do was walk off the fucking plane. Your breasts ain't that great."

"Like hell they're not" Serena replied.

When he returned to city hall, Stride didn't know how to read the chemistry in the conference room, except to realize that Maggie and Serena had become fast friends during the course of the afternoon. He draped his wet coat over the back of a chair. With a tired groan, he sat down and put his feet up on the scratched wood of the tabletop.

"FBI," he announced. "Full of Bullshit Ideas."

"It's enough to bask in the reflected glow of their presence," Maggie told him.

Stride nodded. "I'm glad you feel that way. I told K-2 that you could babysit the Feebs next time."

"Thanks a lot," Maggie said.

"What happened with Dan Erickson?" Serena asked.

Stride groaned again and gave them a run-down of Dan's threats.

"I told you he was an asshole," Maggie said.

"And you were right," Stride admitted. He explained to Serena. "Maggie and Dan had a brief fling a few years ago. It ended badly. Something about her burning down Dan's house."

"That's a gross exaggeration," Maggie said. "It was an accidental cigarette burn on a Burberry coat."

"Yes, but you don't smoke," Stride reminded her.

Serena chuckled. "I love you two."

"Did you come up with anything while I was gone?" Stride asked.

"We made some breakthroughs, but on a different case," Maggie said, winking at Serena. Stride noticed that Serena gave Maggie a withering stare, then turned beet red and grabbed a manila folder from the desk and began reading. He noted that the folder was upside down.

"What caser Stride asked.

"A head case, actually. The twisted mind of Jonathan Stride."

Stride smiled. "Do you charge by the hour?"

"You can't afford us."

"Lucky me. In between, did you get any actual police work done while I was arranging lattes for the FBI?"

Serena put the folder down, composed again. "Nothing that gets us any answers. But at least I know the case now."

"All right, let's get back to Rachel's original disappearance," Stride said. "I'm betting if we knew what really happened then, we'd know why she was killed."

"Except we were all wrong three years ago," Maggie said.

"Yes, but we know something now that you didn't know then," Serena pointed out.

"Such as?" Stride asked.

"We know Rachel was really alive."

Stride nodded. He stood up and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee. An air-conditioning vent hummed loudly, blowing cold air on his head. "That's true. All right, what else do we know?"

"We know Rachel was at the barn that night," Maggie said.

"Do we?" Serena asked. "Could the evidence have been planted?"

"What, you think a mysterious stranger came by with an eye dropper and left her blood?" Maggie shook her head. "Rachel was mere-and she was in the back of Graeme's van, too. The fibers from her shirt matched."