Soon after, he heard Sara shout back, “It’s for you.”

Jared shut off the water, dried his hands with a nearby dish towel, and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mr. Lynch, it’s Bari Axelrod with American Health Insurance. I just wanted to get back to you with that address for Dr. Kuttler. A colleague just told me I could access it from your file.”

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

There was an awkward pause on the other line. “I’m sorry, is this Jared Lynch?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Mr. Lynch, can you give me your date of birth and social security number?”

“I don’t think so. Now who’d you say you were again?”

“My name is Bari Axelrod and I’m with American Health Insurance, your insurance provider.”

“Why do you need that information?” Jared asked suspiciously. “Don’t you already have it?”

“Sir, I just spent a half hour on the phone with someone who said his name was Jared Lynch. If that wasn’t you, I have to figure out who I’m speaking to. If it makes you feel any better, I know the last three claims you filed were for Doctors Koller, Wickett, and Hoffman, in that order. Believe me, I already have your information. Now, can you please give me your date of birth and social security number?”

Hesitantly, Jared obliged. “What did he want?”

“And for verification purposes, can you tell me which knee Dr. Koller treated you for?”

“My left. Now tell me what he said.”

“He asked me to go through all of his expenses so he could get a better idea of what he spent.”

“And you just gave him my confidential medical information?”

“I thought he was you. He gave me your birthdate and social security number. Said he was trying to put together a budget.”

Wiping his forehead with the dish towel, Jared started pacing across the kitchen. “What exactly did you tell him?”

“I went through Dr. Hoffman’s dental bills, Dr. Wickett’s annual checkups, and the visit to Dr. Koller for your knee, including the charge for making the brace. And then when I got through those, he started asking about your wife.”

“What’d you tell him?” Jared asked, his voice shaking.

“Sir, I had no idea-”

“Please just tell me what you told him.”

“I just went over expenses. That’s all we have here. Her prescriptions for birth-control pills, Seldane for allergies, and the four-month prescription for antidepressants from her psychiatrist. That’s when he asked me for Dr. Kuttler’s address or phone number. He said he wanted to check her rates. I didn’t realize we had them here, so I asked him if he wanted to hold. He said it was no big deal, that he could look it up himself. And then when I found out that I could access them, I called you back and realized that-”

“I don’t believe this,” Jared said.

“I’m truly sorry, sir. He had your policy number, so I-”

“How would someone get that?”

“I have no idea. It’s printed on your health insurance card. Have you lost your wallet recently?”

“Is everything okay?” Sara asked as she entered the kitchen.

Jared nodded to his wife and turned his attention back to the phone. “Ms. Axelrod, I’ll have to call you back later. I don’t have those papers in front of me.”

“But-”

Jared hung up the phone. “What’s wrong?” Sara asked, assessing his expression.

“More problems with our insurance company,” Jared said as he again wiped his forehead. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure, because-”

“I’m sure,” Jared insisted. “They just messed up one of our claims. I can take care of it.”

Wandering up and down the narrow aisles of the neighborhood grocery store, Jared spent the early part of Saturday morning doing some not-so-necessary shopping. Over the past four days, he hadn’t once slept straight through the night. Regardless of how exhausted he was, he found himself waking up at three, four, and five o’clock in the morning. Always for the same reason – always to check on Sara. He was hoping that Saturday was going to be the day when he’d be able to sleep late and catch up on the lost hours. But when Sara’s alarm went off at eight o’clock, Jared was forced to face the day. He did everything in his power to lie in bed and keep his eyes shut, but again, it was no use. He couldn’t get the question out of his head: Are they going to take her? That was what he asked himself every morning, and that was all he cared about.

Unwilling to face the answer, Jared crawled out of bed. While Sara showered, he decided to run to the market. Fifteen minutes later, he headed home carrying two bags of groceries and half a dozen bagels. Walking past dozens of other New Yorkers who were carrying similar packages, Jared still couldn’t take his mind off his wife. She’ll be safe, he told himself. Otherwise, he’d have to-

His thoughts were interrupted by the shrill siren of an oncoming ambulance. With the traffic lights on its side, it flew down Broadway. When Jared first looked up, the ambulance was four blocks away. Seconds later, the ambulance was about to reach Eightieth Street – the block Jared and Sara lived on.

Don’t turn, don’t turn, please don’t turn, Jared whispered to himself as he stood on the corner of Seventy-ninth. All around him, people covered their ears to block out the deafening scream of the siren, but Jared didn’t notice. He was too focused on the ambulance. Especially when it turned down Eightieth Street.

The first thing he did was run. That was instinct. Clutching his bags, Jared darted up Broadway at the fastest sprint he could manage. Not Sara, he begged. Don’t let it be her. He was moving quickly, but for him, not fast enough. Without hesitation, he let go of the groceries and took off. He could hear the wail of the siren echo down the narrow street. When he turned the corner, he saw that the ambulance had stopped halfway down the next block, right in front of their apartment. “Sara!” he shouted. But as he took his first few steps down Eightieth Street, he saw the ambulance move farther down the block. It had stopped to inch its way past a double-parked car. And as it maneuvered past the obstacle and turned onto Columbus Avenue, Jared finally stopped running. It’s all right, he thought, standing there with his hands shaking. Sara was all right. She had to be.

With a confident stride and a commanding look in her eyes, Sara strolled across the grand jury room. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are here today to do one job – and that job is justice.”

“‘That job is justice’?” Conrad interrupted as he sat in the front row of the jury box. “This isn’t a congressional hearing – we want these jurors to take you seriously.”

“I can’t help it,” Sara said, throwing her legal pad on the table in the front of the room. “Every time I get nervous, I start spouting clichés. All those years of bad movies are finally catching up with me.”

“Didn’t they teach you about juries in your old law firm?” Guff asked, seated next to Conrad.

“I told you, I did two trials in six years. We settled everything else.”

“Ah, the paralysis of passive resistance,” Guff said. “How I long for that stagnant touch.”

“Make another joke, and I’ll ram my stagnant touch straight up your stagnant-”

“Leave the boy alone,” Conrad interrupted. “Let’s get back to juries.” He stood up and moved next to Sara in the front of the room. “Whether you’re in a grand jury or a regular trial, juries are always about trust. If they trust you, they’ll take your side. If not, you lose. But there’s a difference between having a jury like you and having a jury convict for you. If you want a jury to vote against the accused, you need more than a few warm smiles and some smooth hand gestures.”

“So what’s the trick?”

“The trick is language,” Conrad said. “There’ll be anywhere from sixteen to twenty-three people on the grand jury. All you have to do is convince twelve of them that the facts justify a felony charge. They’re not voting to convict him; they don’t have to put him in jail. All they have to do is find reasonable cause to believe that Kozlow committed the crime. That’s a pretty low threshold, but it’s easy to get tripped up.”