“WHERE TO, MIKE?” Mary Catherine said as I hopped back into our van. “Starbucks? That diner on Eleventh? No, how about we score a couple of warm H and H bagels and eat them in the park? I’m famished after that all-nighter.”

“Change of plans, Mary Catherine,” I said. “Another kid just got kidnapped. I have to head over to Columbia yesterday.”

Mary Catherine’s eyes lit up as she revved the engine. She was a notorious lead foot.

“Hit the lights, Starsky. I’ll get you there in no time.”

On our way to Columbia, I called Chief Fleming.

“There you are,” she said. “The press found out about it before we did. Are you there yet?”

“Just about.”

“The TV is saying that it’s the media mogul Gordon Hastings’s son, but that hasn’t been confirmed.”

“That’ll be the first thing on my list,” I said as we arrived at the campus.

A mob of students and press had crowded into Low Plaza, at 116th and Broadway. Sirens split the air every few seconds as more and more police cars arrived.

I saw Emily Parker emerge from the subway and called to her.

“Oh, I see,” Mary Catherine said, glaring at her through the windshield. “You didn’t say she was going to be here.”

“Of course,” I said as I got out. “She’s a kidnapping expert with the FBI. This looks like a kidnapping. What is it, Mary?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s none of my business what you do, Mike,” she said as she revved the van and ripped the transmission into gear.

“Or who you do it with. You’re welcome for the ride,” she said as she peeled off.

She whipped a screeching U-ee. I stood gaping as she dropped the hammer down Broadway.

Had she gone completely over the edge? Must have been the science fair, I thought.

“Was that your nanny?” Emily said as she arrived at a jog beside me.

“I’m not really sure,” I said.

FRANCIS X. MOONEY carried a briefcase and a venti latte as he hurried with the morning rush-hour crowd through Grand Central Terminal. He was approaching the famous clock at the station’s center when he spotted the girl at the end of one of the Metro North ticket lines. He halted, weak suddenly, his heart snaring, unable to breathe.

The milky skin, the long black hair. My God, it was her! he thought, panicking. He’d messed up somehow! Chelsea Skinner was right there. She was still alive!

When the young woman turned to open her purse, the spell was broken. Francis felt a head rush of relief as he realized it was actually a thirty-something businesswoman, much too tall and heavy to be the young woman he had abducted and shot.

What the hell was wrong with him? he thought as he unrooted himself. Things were getting to him. The lack of sleep, the physical exertion. He was losing it, actually hallucinating.

He stopped at a line of Verizon phone kiosks. He removed the vial of Ritalin that sat beside the 9-millimeter Browning at the bottom of his briefcase.

He’d been practically living on amphetamines for the past three weeks, Adderall, meth, bennies. He’d read somewhere that the air force gave its pilots amphetamines to keep them alert on long-range missions.

He was on a mission, too, wasn’t he? The most important mission the world had ever known. He needed anything and everything that could keep him going.

After he swallowed half a dozen pills, he took off his glasses and laid his forehead against the aluminum coin slot. The thunder of feet on the station’s marble seemed to triple in volume as the speed cut into his bloodstream. He put his glasses back on and made a laser line for the bustling station’s Lexington Avenue exit.

Directly across Lex, he entered the marble-and-stainless-steel lobby of the Chrysler Building. He shifted the latte to his case hand as he passed his company’s electronic pass over the security turnstile’s scanner.

His law firm’s shining brass ERICSSON, WEYMOUTH AND ROTH sign greeted him outside the elevator on the sixty-first floor. At twenty-nine, he’d been the youngest to ever make partner. There was a time he’d wanted, and probably could have gotten, the name Mooney added to that sign.

That time was long over. In fact, this was his very last day.

He made a quick left before the glass door that led to his firm’s reception desk and snuck in through the back way. He needed to keep a low profile. Calling in sick the whole week before, he’d caused a caseload logjam of startling proportions. At his Forbes 100, top-flight, bill-or-die corporate firm, erratic attendance was a sin equivalent to pissing on the senior partner’s desk.

His personal assistant, Carrie, almost fell out of her chair as he ducked into her cubicle.

“Francis! What a happy surprise. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to make it in. I was just about to call you. Your nine o’clock, Steinman, just called. Something came up at the studio, he said. He won’t be in New York until next Thursday.”

Francis breathed down a spike of anger. “Something came up at the studio” was Hollywood bullshit for “the check is in the mail.” He’d only decided to waste time and risk coming in because of the potential good that could have come out of the meeting with the multimillionaire movie executive.

He’d been stupid. He was trying to accomplish everything, but even flying on speed that was impossible.

“And, oh,” Carrie said, lifting a memo sheet out of her in-box, “I heard from reception that Kurt from New York Heart called last Friday. He said it was urgent.”

New York Heart was a privately funded antipoverty organization that Mooney did pro bono work for. He’d been advising them on a case about a destitute Harlem man who was on death row in Florida.

Francis winced. With everything else going on, he’d forgotten all about it. An urgent message about a death-row appeal couldn’t be good.

He thought about his plans. His time frame. It would be an incredible crunch, but he had to try. Even with everything he’d put into motion, he didn’t have a choice but to swing by the charity.

“Drop everything and cancel the rest of my meetings until further notice, would you, Carrie? I have to head up there.”

“Areyou sure you should, Francis?” Carrie whispered with concern. “You haven’t been here for a week. I think some of the clients, and even more so the junior partners, have been complaining, Mr. M. In fact, Mr. Weymouth is livid. Is there anything I can do? Do you need someone to talk to?”

Francis smiled at his personal assistant’s concern. Ever since she’d begun working for him seven years before, she’d been terrific, so smart and precise and loyal.

When it all came out, would she understand what he had tried to do? Would anyone?

That was beside the point, he thought, steeling himself. It didn’t matter what people thought about him personally. It wasn’t about him.

He planted a kiss on her forehead.

“You’re sweet to think about me, Carrie, but believe it or not, I’ve never felt better in all my life,” he said as he headed back for the elevators.