“Tell anyone you were having a little breakdown in your car?”

She looked down at the mug he set in front of her, not even really knowing how to respond. In her experience, the moment you showed you were weak in front of someone, they’d use it against you. “It’s hard to be a judge sometimes. People expect you to act like one, even when you’ve got the flu and feel like crawling up into a ball and dying, or cursing out the cashier who shortchanged you on purpose. There’s not a lot of room for mistakes.”

“Your secret’s safe,” Patrick said. “I won’t tell anyone in the law enforcement community that you’ve actually got emotions.”

Alex took a sip of the coffee, then looked up at him. “Sugar?”

Patrick folded his arms on the bar and leaned toward her. “Darling?” At her expression, he started to laugh, and then handed her the bowl. “Honestly, it’s no big deal. We all have lousy days at work.”

“Do you sit in your car and cry?”

“Not recently, but I have been known to overturn evidence lockers during fits of frustration.” He poured milk into a creamer and set it down. “You know, it’s not mutually exclusive.”

“What’s not?”

“Being a judge and being human.”

Alex added the milk to her mug. “Tell that to everyone who wants me to recuse myself.”

“Isn’t this the part where you tell me we can’t talk about the case?”

“Yes,” Alex said. “Except I’m not on the case anymore. As of noon, it’ll be public knowledge.”

He sobered. “Is that why you were upset?”

“No. I’d already made the decision to leave the case. But then I got word that Josie’s on the witness list for the defense.”

“Why?” Patrick said. “She doesn’t remember anything. What could she possibly say?”

“I don’t know.” Alex glanced up. “But what if it’s my fault? What if the lawyer only did that to get me off the case because I was too stubborn to recuse myself when the issue was first raised?” To her great shame, she realized she was starting to cry again, and she stared down at the bar in the hope that Patrick would not notice. “What if she has to get up in front of everyone in court and relive that whole day?” Patrick passed her a cocktail napkin, and she wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this.”

“Any mother whose daughter came that close to dying has a right to fall apart at the seams,” Patrick said. “Look. I’ve talked to Josie twice. I know her statement back and forth. It doesn’t matter if McAfee puts her on the stand-there’s nothing she can say that’s going to hurt her. The silver lining is that now you don’t have to worry about a conflict of interest. Josie needs a good mother right now more than she needs a good judge.”

Alex smiled ruefully. “What a shame she’s stuck with me instead.”

“Come on.”

“It’s true. My whole life with Josie has been a series of disconnects.”

“Well,” Patrick pointed out, “that presumes that at one point, you were connected.”

“Neither of us remembers back that far. You’ve had better conversations with Josie than I have lately.” Alex stared into the mug of coffee. “Everything I say to Josie comes out wrong. She looks at me like I’m from another planet. Like I have no right to act like a concerned parent now because I wasn’t acting like one before it happened.”

“Why weren’t you?”

“I was working. Hard,” Alex said.

“Lots of parents work hard-”

“But I’m good at being a judge. And lousy at being a mother.” Alex covered her mouth with her hand, but it was too late to take back the truth, which coiled on the bar in front of her, poisonous. What had she been thinking, confessing that to someone when she could barely admit it to herself? She might as well have drawn a bull’s-eye on her Achilles’ heel.

“Maybe you should try talking to Josie the way you talk to the people who come into your court, then,” Patrick suggested.

“She hates it when I act like a lawyer. Besides, I hardly talk in court. Mostly, I listen.”

“Well, Your Honor,” Patrick said. “That might work, too.”

Once, when Josie had been a baby, Alex let her out of her sight long enough for Josie to climb up on a stool. From across the room, Alex watched in terror as Josie’s slight weight upset the balance. She couldn’t get there fast enough to keep Josie from falling; she didn’t want to yell out, because she was afraid that if she startled Josie, that would make her fall, too. So Alex had stood, waiting for an accident to happen.

But instead, Josie managed to perch herself on the stool; to stand up on its little disc seat; to reach the light switch she’d been heading for all along. Alex watched her flick the lights on and off, watched her face split with a smile every time she realized that her actions could transform the world.

“Since we’re not in court,” she said hesitantly, “I’d like it if you called me Alex.”

Patrick smiled. “And I’d like it if you called me Your Majesty King Kamehameha.”

Alex couldn’t help herself; she laughed.

“But if that’s too hard to remember, Patrick would be fine.” He reached for the coffeepot and poured some into her mug. “Free refills,” he said.

She watched him add sugar and cream, in the same quantities that she’d used for her first cup. He was a detective; his job was to notice details. But Alex thought that probably wasn’t what made him such a good cop. It was that he had the capacity to use force, like any other police officer-but instead, he’d trap you with kindness.

That, Alex knew, was always more deadly.

It wasn’t something he’d put on his résumé, but Jordan was especially gifted at cutting the rug to Wiggles songs. His personal favorite was “Hot Potato,” but the one that really got Sam jazzed up was “Fruit Salad.” While Selena was upstairs taking a hot bath, Jordan put on the DVD-she was opposed to bombarding Sam with media, and didn’t want him to be able to spell D-O-RO-T-H-Y, as in Dinosaur, before he could even write his own name. Selena always wanted Jordan to be doing something else with the baby, like memorizing Shakespeare or solving differential equations-but Jordan was a big believer in letting the television do its job in turning one’s brain into porridge…at least long enough to get one good, silly tango session out of it.

Babies were always just the right weight, so that when you finally put them down, you felt like something was missing. “Fruit salad…yummy yummy!” Jordan crooned, whirling around until Sam opened his mouth and let a peal of giggles ribbon out.

The doorbell rang, and Jordan sashayed himself and his tiny partner through the entryway to answer it. Harmonizing-sort of-with Jeff, Murray, Greg, and Anthony in the background, Jordan opened the door. “Let’s make some fruit salad today,” he sang, and then he saw who was standing on his porch. “Judge Cormier!”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

He already knew that she’d recused herself from the case-that happy announcement had been passed down this afternoon. “No, that’s fine. Come on…in.” Jordan glanced back at the trail of toys that he and Sam had left in their wake (he had to clean those up before Selena came back downstairs, too). Kicking as many as he could behind the couch, he led the judge into his living room and switched off the DVD.

“This must be your son.”

“Yeah.” Jordan looked down at the baby, who was in the process of deciding whether or not to throw a fit now that the music had been turned off. “Sam.”

She reached out, letting Sam curl his hand around her forefinger. Sam could charm the pants off Hitler, probably, but seeing him only seemed to make Judge Cormier more agitated. “Why did you put my daughter on your witness list?”

Ah.

“Because,” Jordan said, “Josie and Peter used to be friends, and I may need her as a character witness.”

“They were friends ten years ago. Be honest. You did this to get me off the case.”