Dressed at last. She was about to pick up Maya and head for the door when a glimmer on the dresser top caught her eye. Her wedding and engagement rings. Damn it! She’d been doing okay, but this knocked the wind out of her. Unable to stop herself, she walked over to the dresser and picked them up, feeling their weight, letting them sparkle on her palm. She’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing them. It was three weeks now since she’d told Steve to get out, but last night was the first time she’d taken them off. In her heart she and Steve were still married. Not just in her heart. Legally, they were still married, and Steve was begging her not to do anything to change that.

It was sometime after 3:00 A.M. when she took the rings off. She’d come home and crawled into bed after the Benson crime scene, positively wrecked, and the visions started pouring into her head. Not what you’d think. Not Jed Benson’s corpse, but her own personal horror show, the one that played constantly now. One scene in particular made her rip the rings off. That cocktail party at Steve’s firm six months ago, right before Maya was born. She hadn’t found out for sure until five months later, but that was when she first suspected something was going on. She remembered the sensation of being so pregnant, her feet swollen, feeling like a cow in her maternity formal. And how that slut in her low-cut dress sashayed up to him. The way she touched his arm and giggled. Melanie knew instantly there was something between them. Maybe not actual sex, maybe not then, but something in the air. She knew, and yet she couldn’t believe it. ¡Puta! Melanie always dressed like a lady, and he goes for somebody so…so trashy, so hoochie-looking, with her boobs popping out. Slut. She still couldn’t believe it.

The baby-sitter, Elsie Stanton, called from the foyer as she let herself in. So far Melanie had told Elsie that Steve was away on business-which was true, it just wasn’t the whole truth. The tan line on her ring finger stood out against her skin. She swallowed her tears and shoved the rings back on. Not today.

Yanking open the Velcro strap on the bouncy seat, Melanie lifted Maya out and held her close, drawing comfort from her daughter’s little body. Maya felt fluffy-roly-poly and weightless at the same time. Melanie rested her cheek on Maya’s dark head and immediately felt something cold. She held Maya away, looked down at herself, and laughed despite the awful knot in her stomach. Kids kept you grounded, all right. A large wet circle of drool spread across the shoulder of her blouse.

“Didn’t like Mommy’s outfit, nena? Just like your Aunt Linda. Fashion police.” She put her nose against Maya’s tiny button of a nose.

“Good morning, Elsie. This baby just got her mommy’s blouse all wet,” Melanie said, walking into the foyer. Maya smiled and lifted her arms to Elsie.

“I always say it’s plain foolish to wear fine clothes around little children. Come to Elsie, baby. As if it’s your fault you’re teething!” Elsie said, taking Maya.

“I wasn’t blaming her.”

Melanie sighed, resigned to being misunderstood. Good communication was not the hallmark of her relationship with Elsie, but she’d decided to live with that. As usual, Elsie was twenty minutes late, and, as usual, Melanie bit her tongue and didn’t say anything. A large Jamaican woman in her early sixties with five children of her own, Elsie had worked for Steve’s Aunt Frances for seventeen years, helping to raise Steve’s three cousins. So it was taken for granted that, when Steve’s youngest cousin headed to college just as Melanie’s maternity leave ran out, Elsie would come to work for them, to care for Maya. If Elsie didn’t take direction, if she made no secret of her disdain for Melanie’s beginner-level mothering skills, that was nothing compared with her decades-long relationship with Steve’s family. Melanie trusted her. One of her greatest fears was that Elsie would quit the minute she found out about the separation, forcing Melanie to hire some stranger if she wanted to keep her job. Melanie couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Maya with a stranger. Just look at how she loved Elsie! She went to her so easily, her face lighting up, snuggling into Elsie’s big chest. Already late, Melanie beat back her jealousy and headed for the door.

SHE CAUGHT A CAB IN FRONT OF THE DINER. As they headed for the on-ramp to the FDR, she held a tiny compact in one hand and applied mascara with the other, rehearsing lines to use on Bernadette. She’d marched into that crime scene and taken charge. She already knew more about the investigation than anybody else in the office. She was ready, willing, and able to handle a big case. The speech would sound great-if she ever got the chance to open her mouth. Hell, if she didn’t get fired first.

Bernadette’s was the corner office, sitting at the intersection of two hallways housing the Major Crimes Unit. Melanie took a deep breath, studying her nameplate: BERNADETTE DEFELICE, CHIEF. She squared her shoulders and walked as calmly as she could manage into the anteroom. Bernadette’s secretary, Shekeya Jenkins, played solitaire on the computer as she fielded phone calls, working the telephone buttons with a pencil held gingerly between inch-long, gem-studded nails. Shekeya was the only secretary who ever lasted more than a week with Bernadette, and she prided herself on the accomplishment. She had elaborate braids bleached orangey-red, a big heart tattooed on her arm that said KWAME, and a poisonous tongue. Shekeya didn’t hesitate to give back to Bernadette as good as she got. She raised her eyebrows at Melanie dubiously.

“You want an audience with Her Majesty?”

“Uh-huh. She on the phone?”

“What else? You on your own, honey, because the way she acting, I’m not buzzing her. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

As Melanie moved toward the door to the interior office, Bernadette screamed, “Who the fuck is on line three? Why is line three still blinking? Shekeya?”

“She can answer her own goddamn calls, see how she like that,” Shekeya said, turning back to her card game, a bored look on her face.

Bernadette sat with her back to the door, facing her computer and a bank of telephones, but turned as she heard the clicking of Melanie’s high heels.

“Oh. Hold on. You, I wanna talk to,” she said, picking up the telephone and pointing at a guest chair. Melanie sat down and listened. Might as well learn something. Bernadette was stroking the guy on the other end of the line. He was a boss at DEA, and Bernadette was trying to get some business out of him.

“Larry, don’t worry for a minute, we can jam the thing through Washington in no time. I’ll put my best people on it. You’ll get a nice seizure, we’ll get a few bodies to prosecute. Everybody walks away happy.”

She was smooth, no question, yet the cracks were showing. It wasn’t her looks, exactly, because Bernadette was still beautiful. But she was in her mid-forties now and overcompensating, fighting too hard. Her shoulder-length hair, once a rich dark brown, was colored an unnatural red. She wore too much makeup. And her clothes…well, tight clothes suited some people-take Melanie’s sister Linda, a Latina diva if ever there was one. But on Bernadette they looked cheesy, desperate. Bernadette had never married, had no kids. A career spent sleeping with cops wasn’t likely to pan out into anything permanent, but no other type of guy seemed to do it for her.

Bernadette hung up and focused on Melanie. It was scary, because she did not look happy.

“How did you know Jed Benson was murdered?” Bernadette demanded. Melanie knew from that tone she would never deliver the speech she’d been planning.

“I was there last night, at the scene.”

“Yes, I know that, miss. I had to hear it from Lieutenant Ramirez instead of your sneaky little mouth. How did you know to go there?”