I clicked on the symbol that saidRead Mail and the letter opened. Not exactly warm and friendly: “Who are you and why do you want to know?”

I typed a response. There was no point lying to Clem. I was not going to win him over any more quickly unless I revealed myself. “I’m a prosecutor in the office of the district attorney of New York County. If you give me your telephone number, I’d like to call you to explain my concern about Katrina.” I included my own number on the Vineyard, in hopes that Clem would trust me enough to call tonight. I hitSend, noting that it was four-thirty daylight saving time, and probably five hours later where the letter was being delivered.

When it was my turn to lie down on the massage table, I was too wired to relax. Often, it was my calves that were tight, from hours of doing trial work, standing in the courtroom in high heels. Today, Pamela worked the tense muscles that had knotted themselves in my neck and upper body.

Nina had started a fire in the living room and opened the first bottle of Sancerre by the time I got back with our dinner. I emptied the chowder into a pot on top of the stove, stirred it, and left it on low to heat up.

“Be honest. I’m just telling Val that I’ve saved you from at least four bad romances in the last decade. Is that fair?”

“Probably five.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that horse’s ass you fell head over heels for when we spent the week in Aspen. What a con artist he was. Alex was ready to throw out her penal law and take up life as a ski bum. I practically had to use a winch to get her down the mountain and out of town.”

“I hate to think what I missed when I went for dinner if we’ve already raced through most of my men. Have we dissected Jake yet, or did you wait for me to do that?”

Val was quick to protest. “She was just giving me a summary of how close you two are, how long you’ve been friends. I envy you. I’ve never had the one great girlfriend who goes that far back with me.”

I couldn’t imagine my life without the loyalty and love of my dearest friend. We had been through every triumph and tragedy at each other’s side, and I had been able to confide in her about each decision-personal and professional-that had shaped my life.

I served the soup, opened the second bottle of wine, and then brought the platter of two-pound lobsters to the table. Nobody worked the meat out of every crevice of a crustacean better than Nina. She stopped talking to savor the sweet little legs, while Val went right on asking questions about each of us between bites.

“Jerry?” Nina answered as she ripped off a large claw and pulled the meat out of the cracked shell. “Summer after our freshman year at Wellesley, I was working at the State Department. Met him at a Fourth of July party.”

“And you’re still together, seventeen years later? I can’t think of any of my friends who are still with the guys they met in college.”

“Get back to Alex. This guy is so juicy and delicious.”

Like everyone else, Val tried to get gently around to why I wound up specializing in sex crimes prosecution.

“No, I’ve never been raped, if that’s what you’re asking. I came to the office to do public service when I graduated from law school. Battaglia runs the finest prosecutor’s office in the country, and I wanted to do trial work, to learn from the best.

“Sex crimes have had a terrible history in the criminal justice system of this country. Before the 1970s, the word of a woman was legally insufficient for a rape conviction, unlike any other crime. The laws of most states required independent proof-evidence from some other source to identify the attacker-before she was allowed to testify.”

“It must have been impossible to win cases back then.”

“Worse than that, they couldn’t even go to trial unless this corroboration existed. And all that was before there were evidence collection kits. DNA hadn’t been dreamed of as a scientific technique back then.”

“How did it change?”

“Very slowly. But because there were district attorneys like Battaglia, who believed in devoting resources to this issue when few others did, the woman who ran the unit for fifteen years before I took it over was given the backing to do creative things and begin to change the way these crimes were viewed by the legal system and by jurors. They were really aggressive about investigating these cases as partners with the NYPD, about changing the laws as well as informing public attitudes.”

“And you’ve stayed for so long. Doesn’t it get depressing?”

I smiled as I dipped my last piece of lobster tail in the drawn butter. “The good days far outweigh the bad, Val. You can’t imagine what it’s like when a woman puts herself in our hands, having lived through the terror of the assault. You start with detectives like Mercer, who are not only compassionate and emotionally supportive, but who are dogged investigators with the brains and talent to get the bastards who commit these crimes.

“Now there are trained sexual assault examiners at all the better hospitals, who know what medical evidence to look for. And then you come to my team. Best in the business. The victim usually fears that the system won’t work for her, or that even if the police catch the guy, he’ll never be convicted. But one of the lawyers in our unit takes her through it brilliantly. We’re all trained to handle every aspect of the case and make the survivor as comfortable as we can in the courtroom. And when we give her a victory? There’s nothing more rewarding anywhere in the practice of law.”

“Trust me,” Nina said, licking her fingers as she spoke, “she’s had offers. Alex has had the chance to work at some of the best legal firms in the city. And to go on the bench. She stays there because every day is a different challenge, because she really feels great about making the process work for people who’ve been victimized. The rest of us should look forward to going to work as much as her teammates do.”

I cleared the table and filled the dishwasher while my companions talked and Nina poured us each another glass of wine. When I got to the living room, Nina was stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace, a pillow under her head, wineglass in her hand, and a box of chocolates by her side. “Here’s my contribution to the postprandial hour. I carried these truffles all the way from California.”

Val was resting on one of the sofas, and I lay down on a second one that faced the fire.

“So let’s turn the tables. What’s with you and Mr. Chapman?”

Val smiled and reached for a piece of candy. “He certainly came along at the right moment in my life. I’d just about reached an emotional bottom when he showed up next to me in the hospital. He was giving blood and I was getting it. I’m sure Alex has told you-”

Nina nodded.

“And now he’s given me something to live for. Besides that, it’s never dull. The man loves his work so much that I’m never quite sure when I’m going to have an uninterrupted evening with him. He’s always on, always engaged.”

“You’ve got a real mensch there, Val. Hang on to him.”

I listened to their conversation, thinking back on how close Mike and I had become in the ten years we had known each other. I knew him as a superb investigator and a faithful friend. I had never imagined him as a lover or husband. Val deserved this happiness, so why was I feeling so envious of her tonight?

“I’m trying, Nina. I don’t know if Alex told you, but I was married for six years. An architect, too-guy I met in grad school. He walked out on me. No fight, no other woman, no problem he could identify for me. It was the cancer. He couldn’t handle the fact that I lost a breast. He packed up and left two days after I was released from the hospital.”

Nina rolled over onto her stomach and stared at the fire. “Then there’s Mike. The most stereotypically macho exterior, but his gut is just loaded with sentiment.”