I grabbed the sweater from the back of my chair and buried my head in it, trying to smother the flames. I didn't know whether it was my cries of distress or the acrid smell of smoke, but something brought two rookie cops running from the main hallway on their way to the elevator into my office. One of them grabbed my head and cradled it against his shoulder, then pushed me back to make certain the shirt was no longer smoldering.

"You okay?"

I nodded, trying to calm myself before speaking.

"Sit down till you stop shaking," he said to me.

His partner had picked up the envelope to examine it.

"Be careful," I said. "They'll try to get prints off that."

"You mean it's not yours? I thought maybe you dropped a cigarette and set fire to something on your desk."

"No. The letter was jerry-rigged with matches. I could hear it scratching as soon as I ripped it open, but I didn't realize what was happening fast enough."

The taller of the two cops squatted so that he was eye level with the desk, examining the envelope with the tip of his pen. "Look at this, Pavone. This mutt glued a bunch of matchheads on one side of the flap, then stuck a piece of flint on top of the self-sealer. The minute you start to pull back on it, it's gotta erupt in flames."

Pavone studied what was left of the parched envelope. "You know who sent it? We'll call a unit and get you a sixty-one on this."

"I-uh-I know whose stationery it is, but I'm sure he's not the person who sent it. It's a case I've been working on-I'll have the detectives draw it up, thanks." The uniformed force #61 was the department's name for a criminal complaint form. "I'd have to guess my perp stole some writing paper from his employer's office. Sort of a parting shot at me before he left town."

"Can we get a bus for you?"

"I don't need an ambulance. It didn't get my body, I don't think. It just singed some hair." I could feel the blister developing on the skin beneath my blouse, but fortunately the cops couldn't see that.

"Can we at least get you out of here? Give you a lift home?"

I could see the brass insignias on their collars. They'd have to pass my street on the way north to the 23rd Precinct station house. "Sure. That'd be great."

I locked the door behind me-it was a crime scene now-and waited until I was resting in the rear seat of their patrol car to call the captain of the DA's Squad. I told him what had happened and asked him to get Crime Scene downstairs to photograph the homemade device and send it to the lab for a workup. The janitor would let them in my office with a passkey. I also asked him to break the news to Paul Battaglia and spare me that encounter for the moment, and to explain to the district attorney that I was just fine.

By the time Mike and Mercer arrived at my apartment in response to my calls, I had already showered and washed my hair. I opened the door in an old shirt and leggings, with a pair of scissors in my hand, and went back to the bathroom to snip at the hair that framed the left side of my face, and then even out the uncharred pieces that hung on the right. I felt like I was thirteen again, cutting bangs for myself and hoping my mother wouldn't notice the hatchet job.

Mike stood behind me in the doorway. "Smells like an incinerator in here. Take some more off the top, kid," he said, lifting some strands from behind that I couldn't see for myself. "Where's the blouse?"

"On my bed."

"Mercer, you better voucher it. Jeez, lucky you don't wear polyester," he called out from the other room. "There's a hole the size of my fist in this. You'd have been instantly deep-fried. Let me see your chest."

He had walked back into the bathroom. I opened a couple of buttons and showed Mike the burn in the hollow below my shoulder.

He whistled at the ugly melange of colors that had already developed there. "For once it's a good thing you're so flat-uh, so small. Another inch of decolletage and we'd have had roasted marshmal-lows. Little ones. Tasty little ones. I mean, probably tasty."

"Your empathy is heartwarming."

"Want me to rub on the butter?"

"That remedy went out with the dark ages. Cool water. I stood in the shower for ten minutes, cold enough to form icicles, I think. It'll be fine." I glanced at the burn in the mirror-a mild second degree, I figured, and went back to cutting my hair.

"My way is a helluva lot more soothing than a frigid shower, but you're the boss."

I joined the guys in the den five minutes later, where Mike pronounced my self-administered hairstyling a complete failure. "She's got that whackier-than-Sharon-Stone-looking, finger-in-an-electrical-socket-just-for-kicks expression, don't you think, Mercer? Too punk to prosecute."

"Not to worry. The first person I called was Elsa. She'll open the salon for me at seven thirty in the morning." My beloved friend and hairdresser would repair the charcoal-fringed blond coloring and Nana would clip me into better shape.

"You got some kind of screwed-up priorities, kid. First the hairdresser, then the police? Where's your camera? If you're not going to see a doctor, we better get a few shots of the injury."

I went back to the bedroom to get my digital camera and handed it to Mercer when I returned. "This is a big mystery to you, Detective Chapman? Sengor probably put the flare together while he was sitting at home and stewing about his arrest. Then he left it with Alkit to be delivered through the hospital messenger system. Nobody would blink at an envelope with the counsel's return address coming to my office by hand. There'll be a sign-in from a legit deliveryman at our security desk, all on the up-and-up, and Laura was probably still there to receive it. I'm just glad she didn't open it."

"Show him some skin, Coop," Mike said, as Mercer positioned me against the linen-white wall in my hallway to take some photos. "I brought you a get-well present."

When Mercer was finished, we returned to the den together. Mike had fixed each of them a drink, and handed me an elegantly shaped bottle of amber liquid with a bright red ribbon around its throat.

"What's this?"

"Time for an upgrade. A hyperpremium scotch for a hyper-premium broad. No need to get freaky. It's still from Scotland. Isle of Islay."

I tried to pronounce the long name on the unfamiliar label before Mike took the bottle back from me and opened it, pouring an inch-neat-into my glass. "Guy in my liquor store said it's got a lot of finesse. No kidding, that's how he described it. Said it's richer and older than the stuff you've been drinking. Damn, you're richer and older than when I met you, too."

Mercer studied the bottle while I tasted the smoky single malt. He let out a low whistle. "Slow down on that stuff, Alex. The man bought you a twenty-seven-year-old scotch."

"Are you crazy?" I asked Mike. "That must have cost you-"

"Hey, is it any good? That's all that counts tonight."

"It's divine," I said, sinking back against a pillow, letting the rich flavor work on my frazzled nerves. I knew the expensive gift was one of Mike's ways of thanking me for trying to get him back on course. I savored it twice as much.

The television was on and Mike reclicked the mute button to return the sound as Alex Trebek announced the Final Jeopardy category, Famous Military Leaders.

I stretched out on the sofa with two pillows behind my head. "Must be your lucky day. You can recoup your loss on this delicious extravagance."

"Double or nothing," Mike said, tossing two twenty-dollar bills on the floor. "Winner buys dinner. What do you say, blondie? Anywhere you want to go-we can walk around the corner to Swifty's for some twinburgers, or I'll drive you down to Patroon, buy you the biggest steak in the house."