“It happens when I feel stressed. It’s like some people reach for a drink, or a drug. I pick somebody up.”

“Yuck.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you a sex addict?”

“No.” Cate recoiled. “It’s not like I do it all that often.”

“How often?”

“Once a month at most, and in my defense, men have been doing it for centuries. Have you seen a Budweiser commercial lately?”

Gina scoffed. “Oh, are you justifying it now? If you’re so proud of it, why keep it a secret?”

“Hey, stop being right.”

“It’s not about gender, it’s about you. That behavior, it’s not you.” Gina shook her head, adamant. “You leave Graham, a normal man, a stockbroker who gave you something from Tiffany’s on the third date. That breaks all the rules. And you leave him-to run to a rapist?”

Cate fingered the bracelet, still on her wrist. “Never again.”

“You’re stopping now? Swearing off working-class hunks? How could you let yourself be used like that?”

“I didn’t see it that way.” Cate considered it. “I guess I just feel more comfortable with that kind of man. Like my husband. I knew him from high school, remember?”

“Barely. The construction guy?”

“Yes. It’s where I came from. I worked to get where I am, I wasn’t born to it. My mother never went to college. I’m not the Ritz, I’m the pink motel.”

“You make fun of Dr. Phil. You should watch.” Gina scowled. “You loved your mom, right?”

“Yes, she was great. She was devoted to me. After my dad left, she got a job at my school, in the office. It was her and me.” Her mother had died right after Cate had graduated from college, and Cate missed her every day. “It was us against the world. She worked at my school, for the principal. People thought we were trying to be better than them because she wanted college for me. She protected me against everything-the mean nun at school, the monster at night, everything.”

“She and your dad broke up when you were how old?”

“Three.”

“And you didn’t see him again? No visitation or anything?”

“No. He was gone. You know all this-”

“So obviously, you have abandonment issues with men.”

“So what? Who doesn’t?”

Gina didn’t laugh. “You’re a smart woman, Cate. Let’s figure this out. Something must have triggered this behavior. If it started a year and a half ago, what was happening then, in your love life?”

Cate could barely remember. “I was seeing that guy at Schnader. That one you hated. Marc With a C.”

“Narcissist Alert. Watch out for French cuffs. I told you but you didn’t listen.”

Cate smiled. “We broke up about that time, but I wasn’t serious about him anyway.”

“But wasn’t that when they started talking about you for appointment to the bench?”

Cate thought back. “Yes.”

“Marc With a C was threatened by that, I remember you saying. He didn’t want people calling him Judge Marc With a C.”

Cate smiled again. “More or less. You remember my life better than I do.”

“Thank you. You were kind of surprised when your name came up for the vacancy. You thought you weren’t political. You didn’t think you’d get it.”

Cate laughed. “Oh, I knew I wasn’t political. I didn’t leave work early enough to vote, even.”

“And they began the background check and evaluated your credentials, before you could be confirmed. Maybe you were sabotaging yourself, in a way. Worried they wouldn’t find you qualified.”

“You know better than that. The scrutiny for us isn’t like for appellate judges. The confirmation hearing is pro forma. We’re basically appointed. I knew I had the credentials, and I was a woman, which didn’t hurt. It played out in my favor that I wasn’t political. They were so polarized, I was the only one they all agreed on for the job.”

“Maybe you didn’t want the job.”

Cate blinked. “Of course I wanted the job.”

“What if you didn’t? We’ve talked about how it’s kind of lonely, and you can’t see your old partners anymore. You loved the action in court. Aren’t you a little ambivalent about being on the bench?”

“How could I be? It’s the peak of the profession. Every trial lawyer wants to be a trial judge. There’s only seven hundred in the country, on the federal level. It’s the ultimate promotion.”

“That’s not my point.” Gina cocked her head. “You really wanted the promotion. But did you really want the job?”

Oddly, Cate had never really thought about that. Being a judge was the best she could be, and she always wanted to be the best. “I don’t know.” She shook her head, too tired to think, and shaken, still. “I guess I should get some therapy.”

“Uh, hello, ya think? And meds, lotsa meds!” Gina smiled, and then so did Cate, rising.

“Okay, enough. Want more coffee?” Cate crossed to the cabinet, retrieved a paper filter, and slotted it into the coffeemaker. “How’s the baby?”

“The neighbor’s there. He won’t even wake up.”

“Great. Thanks for coming over.” Cate dumped ground coffee into the filter and went to the sink to fill up the glass pot. “Hey, why’d you call me in the first place? Another tantrum?”

“No, it wasn’t about him. I heard on TV about the fight in court. I figured you might be upset.”

“Oh, that. Between the rape and the flat tire, I almost forgot.” Cate flicked on the coffee machine, thinking of Marz.

“Is that what set it off?”

“Set what off?”

“Your little frolic and detour tonight.”

“I’ll ask my new shrink.” Suddenly the phone rang, and they exchanged glances. Cate said, “I’m not getting it. It’s Graham, and I haven’t had my therapy yet.”

Ring! “It could be the sitter. She knows I’m here, and I left my cell at home.”

“Sorry.” Cate picked up quickly. “Hello?”

“Judge? Did I wake you?”

“Invaluable.” Cate smiled with relief at Val’s voice. “What are you doing up so late on a school night?”

“Chief Judge Sherman needed to reach you, but he didn’t have your number. So he called me.”

“What’s up?”

“There’s bad news.”

The next morning, Cate drove up Market Street in heavy traffic, insulated by the car’s perfect seal from the media in front of the courthouse. Reporters held microphones at their sides, and cameramen drank coffee by enamel-white vans with cheery station logos. They were waiting for her, but she wouldn’t have answered their questions anyway. She couldn’t, because she didn’t have the answers. Art Simone had been shot to death last night. And the police were looking for Richard Marz, who was nowhere to be found.

Cate felt a wave of regret. She should have foreseen that it could happen. That if Marz couldn’t get justice in her courtroom, he’d get it on the street. She took a right onto Sixth Street. She still couldn’t believe that Simone had been murdered. She didn’t respect him, but she didn’t want him dead. She’d prayed her comments hadn’t put him there.

Cate aimed the car for the security booth that would admit her to the judges’ parking lot, where she’d take the keyed elevator up to her chambers in the secured half of the courthouse. As a federal judge, she could conceivably go through the entire day without meeting a single member of the public she served. She used to think this was unhealthy, but today she was loving the idea.

Upstairs, Cate opened the door to her chambers, and Val looked up from her desk, her brown eyes filled with empathy. Her full mouth tilted unhappily down at the corners and her smooth skin belied her age of sixty-five. She slipped off Dictaphone headphones covering her steely braids. “Judge, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” Cate set her briefcase and bag on the navy couch in the reception room, a medium-sized square furnished with an inherited couch and matching leather side chairs. She slipped out of her sheepskin coat and hung it up on the rack.