“Enough, Tony,” Rafferty said, pulling Kozlow away from Jared.

“Don’t touch me!” Kozlow yelled at Rafferty. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you do,” Rafferty said. “But I need to talk to him. Now catch your breath and calm down.” As Kozlow stepped back, Rafferty leaned down toward Jared’s face. “You told me not to worry,” he whispered. “Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me?”

“I’m sorry,” Jared moaned, saliva running down his chin. “I didn’t know she had-”

“Don’t feed me any more bullshit. I’m full. We need to find out what Sara knows. Get her notes, read her mind, do whatever you want, but find out what the hell is going on. This cannot turn into a murder trial.”

Rafferty stood up and shut off the emergency alarm. In a few moments, the elevator arrived at the first floor of the building. Jared remained on the floor as Rafferty climbed over him and left the elevator. When Kozlow followed, he ground his boot into Jared’s right hand. “Pick yourself up,” Kozlow warned, pressing his heel against Jared’s fingers.

“I mean it,” Rafferty added as the doors slid shut. “Tomorrow morning I want some answers.”

Jared arrived home at a quarter to eleven. He waited impatiently on the sofa until Sara walked in at eleven-thirty. The moment the door slammed shut, Jared was out of his seat, approaching his wife.

“Tell me what happened,” he said before she had even unbuttoned her coat.

“I can’t,” Sara said. “Now drop it or change the subject.”

“What’s the story with Arnold Doniger? Why is he-”

“Jared, are you listening to what I’m saying?” Sara asked, glaring. “Please stop asking me about it.”

“Just tell me if you’re going to do an autopsy, so I’ll know what I’m doing tomorrow.”

Sara walked into the bedroom and started to undress.

“Please,” Jared said. “I have to know.”

She understood what he was doing, but she wasn’t going to budge. Pretending not to listen, she hung her suit jacket and skirt in her closet. After taking a T-shirt from her dresser, she made her way to the bathroom. Jared followed her, standing in the doorway as she washed her face.

“Sara, don’t ignore me like this. I need your help. I don’t know what else to do.”

He was begging now, and the tone caught her off guard. Not just because of the way it tugged at her emotions, but because she could tell it was true. Jared was drowning. He needed her help. And with a few pieces of information, she could take his pain away. No, she told herself. Don’t let him do that to you. Keeping her eyes shut, she rinsed off the soap. Then, in one quick movement, she buried her face in a towel. Don’t look at him, she told herself. It’s the only way he can get to you.

“Please, Sara. You’re my wife.” As Jared said the words, Sara heard the smallest of cracks in his voice. He wasn’t just begging anymore. He was crying. She lifted her face from the towel; she couldn’t help herself. As she looked up, she saw pain in his eyes. No, not just pain. Fear. “Please,” he repeated.

Sara felt her mouth go dry. Her heart sank. She never wanted to do this to him. But she had to. “I’m sorry, Jared. I can’t.” Dropping her gaze to the floor, she tried to squeeze past him, but Jared put his arms around her.

“Sara…”

She pulled away. “Please… it’s hard enough.”

Jared stood in the doorway of the bathroom, watching his wife get into bed. As she shut off the light on her nightstand, he didn’t move. Finally, from the dark, she spoke. “Good night.”

For two and a half hours, Jared lay motionless in bed, pretending to be asleep. Lying with his back to Sara, his eyes long adjusted to the dark, he stared at the pale beige radiator in the corner of the room. He thought about the day they had moved into the apartment and the day he had suggested repainting the radiator to match their wine-and-beige-colored comforter. Sara had told him that no one in New York would be caught dead color-coordinating a radiator and had refused to participate in such a “useless” project. But Jared pressed on and painted it, his sense of order outweighing his wife’s commitment to her city’s constant chaos. And now, as he tried to keep himself awake, he once again stared at the radiator and wondered why they had spent so much time fighting over something so inconsequential.

When the electronic numbers on his digital alarm clock read 2:30, Jared slowly turned toward his wife and whispered, “Sara.”

No answer.

“Sara, are you awake?”

Still no answer.

As quietly as he could manage, Jared raised the covers and slid out of bed. Silently, he tiptoed around the bed. On the way, he hit a loose floorboard that let out a tiny shriek. In response, Sara turned over on her side, facing the nightstand that Jared was aiming for. He stopped in his tracks. “Sara?” he whispered.

No response.

Jared crept forward and crouched next to his wife’s briefcase, which was leaning against the nightstand. But as he reached for it, he paused. My God, what am I doing? Pulling away, he wondered why he had ever thought he could go through with it. Then he caught sight of Sara, and the answer again became perfectly clear: Her life was worth the risk. Steeling himself against the churning in his stomach, Jared held his breath and gently lifted Sara’s bag.

His hands were shaking as he opened the single clasp and raised the leather flap. Feverishly fingering through the folders inside, he pulled out the one marked KOZLOW. As he was about to open it, he looked again at his slumbering wife. She looked beautiful. Transfixed, Jared continued to stare at her. He didn’t want to betray her, but he needed to know what she knew. And before he could talk himself out of it, he opened the folder and started reading.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jared quickly stood up. Sara was wide awake.

“Sara, before you say anything, let me-”

“Get out.”

“It’s not what-”

“Get out! I want you out of this house! Now!” she shouted. Hopping out of bed, she pulled the folder from Jared’s hands. “How dare you do this to me! How dare you! Do you really have that little respect for me?”

“Of course not, I just-”

“You just what? You were looking for gum? You needed a pen to write down your dream? You wanted to break every ethics rule in the book? What’s the lame excuse of the week?”

“Trust me, I know it doesn’t look good, but I can explain.”

“Trust you? You want me to trust you?” She dropped the folder and smacked Jared. First in the chest, then in the shoulder. “This is our trust, Jared! This is our trust, and you just ripped it apart!”

He tried to block her as best he could. “Sara, just let me explain!”

“No, no, of course. Go ahead – explain. I’m dying to hear this one.”

Jared took a deep breath. He was shaking. Nowhere to turn. “I know you’re not going to believe this, but this has nothing to do with you. It’s only about the case. Like I said from the beginning, you have to realize how much it all means to me. I wasn’t looking for a free ride; I just wanted to know what I was going to be facing tomorrow.”

“And did you do the same thing before I went in front of the grand jury? Did you raid my files then? And are you going to take another peek before the actual trial?” As Sara rattled off the questions, she stepped closer to Jared. She pushed her finger into his chest with each accusation.

Instinctively, he backed up, moving farther away from Sara’s side of the bed. “Don’t use that tone with me,” he said. “I barely even saw anything.”

“That’s because I woke up and stopped you!”

“Listen, I’m sorry we had to get into this, but if the situations were reversed, you’d have done the same thing to me,” he said, his back pressed against Sara’s dresser. “Now if you want me to move out, I’ll be happy to oblige, but you better think very carefully before you do anything you’ll regret.”