Lainie realized her mouth was watering. For a brief, tempting moment, she thought about running downstairs and getting herself one of the damnable but delicious things. Maybe score a little coke at the same time. A twofer. A dumb idea, she supposed. But it would only take a minute. No longer than going to the ladies’ room. She might miss Hank’s call. But then he’d leave a message. Of course, meeting Hank, literally face-to-face, with onions and garlic on her breath might just turn him off. So what if it did? He couldn’t take away a partnership on grounds of bad breath, could he? And it might just spare her a session on the red leather couch. Of course, in less than twenty-four hours, she’d be sunning in a skimpy bikini on a beautiful beach where she wouldn’t want even the hint of an extra bulge ruining her nearly perfect figure. ‘Oh, screw it,’ she finally said. She grabbed the FedEx envelope from her desk to deposit in the box on the square and headed for the elevator. She’d skip dinner.

When she came back from her coatless dash across the square, coke in her pocket and hot sausage in hand, Hank still hadn’t called. Lainie lifted her long, slender legs up onto the desk and bit into the succulent snack. She practically moaned with pleasure. This was better than sex. Much better. As she ate, the image of the singers in the square came back, and she felt a sudden longing for a child of her own to celebrate Christmas with. A little boy or girl to love and protect. Like her mother protected her? No. Better than that. Much better. No child of hers would ever go through the kind of hell she’d endured. She’d make sure of that. No child anywhere should ever have to suffer that. Or would if Lainie could help it. Anyway, it all seemed a stretch. Maybe someday, she supposed, but for now she had to be tougher than that. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, Marc Antony told the Romans.

Yes, she thought, ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Did she have what it took to get where she wanted? Lainie Goff from Rockport via Rockland. The overachiever and star student. The valedictorian of her high school class and winner of a nearly free ride through four years at Colby and another through three years of law school at Cornell. Lainie Goff, who everyone, including Hank, saw as a brilliant, tough, self-confident winner. Lainie Goff, who was capable of anything, even fucking her way to the top. Did she have what it took? She wasn’t sure. So far at least, she’d fooled them all. Only she knew the truth. Superstar Lainie didn’t exist. The real Lainie was a woman unworthy of anyone’s love, even her own. A woman who could only achieve the success she so desperately wanted lying on her back, knees up and knickers down. Wallace Stevens Albright would be so proud of his creation. He wanted her to call him Daddy. Once again, he’d gotten his way. She’d become his daughter through and through.

The phone rang. Lainie swallowed the last bite of sausage and picked it up.

Nearly nine o’clock. Lainie Goff’s teeth were clenched in quiet rage as she walked toward her car in Palmer Milliken’s private underground garage. The clickity-click of her heels against the concrete punctuated her fury in a rhythmic tattoo. He hadn’t turned her down. No. He was much too slick for that. In fact, he hadn’t said much of anything at first. Just teased her with the possibility until he’d gotten his rocks off. Then, while she was standing there, still half naked, he pulled the rug out from under her.

‘Lainie, I’m afraid you’ll have to be patient,’ he said.

She said nothing. Just stood there seething. Staring at him with the same intensity of hatred she once reserved for Albright.

‘Just a couple more months,’ he said, zipping his fly, pulling up his suspenders. ‘I’m working on it. It will happen. I promise. It will happen. There are a couple of other good candidates. Janet Pritchard. Bill Tobias.’

She wondered if he was fucking Pritchard, too. Wondered if Janet was as good as Lainie at her performance reviews.

‘You know as well as I do,’ he continued, ‘the committee almost never approves partnerships for anyone who hasn’t been here seven years, and you’ve got a way to go yet. The three of you will probably all be invited at once.’

Didn’t he get it? She didn’t want to wait until the others were invited, too. She wanted her recognition first. She wanted it now. But what the hell was she going to do? Yell? Scream? Hold her breath till she turned blue? She couldn’t quit. She needed the job. She had car payments to make. And she sure as hell wasn’t ready to give up on her dream of a Palmer Milliken partnership. But she finally figured it out. As long as Hank kept dangling the promise without actually delivering the goods, he had her where he wanted her. Literally and figuratively. Down on her knees with her mouth around his cock. The minute she got it, screw him. He could find himself another eager young associate to fuck.

Her car stood waiting in its assigned spot in the nearly empty garage. Just her Beemer and Hank’s Merc remained. Everyone else had long since left for the holiday. She pressed the little button on her key ring. The car’s lights flashed. Its doors unlocked. Still distracted, she didn’t notice the absence of the accustomed click. She slid into the front seat. She sat there for a minute, still fuming, before she finally turned the key. The engine smoothly hummed to life. She glanced in the rearview mirror.

She froze.

‘Hello, Lainie,’ a familiar voice murmured. ‘There’re a couple of things we still need to discuss.’

Two

Portland, Maine

Friday, January 6

McCabe poured the Scotch, freehand, nearly to the top of the glass. Twelve-year-old Macallan single malt. No ice. No water. Smooth, expensive whisky, made more for sipping than for serious drinking. But right now he didn’t much care. It was his first of the evening. Though, at eight ounces, the glass held nearly three times as much booze as the drinks they served at Tallulah’s – and Tallulah had a generous hand. Even so, McCabe was thinking a few more might follow. Maybe more than a few. However many it took, he supposed, to figure out why he was feeling so shitty about what just went down with Kyra. Not exactly a fight. But not exactly not. Whatever you wanted to call it. It began with a safe enough routine. A pas de deux they’d gone through a number of times before. He asked. She declined. Familiar words. A familiar tune. But this time, wanting a different result, he pushed beyond the familiar and into uncharted territory. Terra incognita where monsters dwelled and ships fell off the ends of the earth.

He was wearing a pair of sweats with nothing underneath. The pants were maroon, frayed and torn at both knees. The words ST BARNABAS TRACK ran vertically down one leg, the last physical reminder of McCabe’s days as a middle distance runner at his high school in the Bronx. Taking a good-sized slug of the Scotch, he padded in stockinged feet across the dark hardwood floor of his living room and settled himself in the big window seat that overlooked Portland’s Eastern Prom. With his back propped against one wall, feet against the other, knees bent to accommodate his length, he gazed out the window. At five o’clock on a cold January afternoon, it was already dark. Weather reports were calling for snow, maybe a big one, but so far, at least, the sky was crystal clear. The moon, nearly full, rode low in the sky. A few cars passed below. He could make out the dark silhouetted limbs of the young trees that lined the other side of the street. Beyond the trees, a broad expanse of dirty snow, some plowed into giant mounds. Beyond that, the even broader expanse of Casco Bay. A long shaft of moonlight glittered, jewel-like, across the surface of the water. A few silvery chunks of ice floated free. In the middle of the bay, he could see the distinctive squat shape of Fort Gorges, a six-sided pile of stone and dirt built to defend Portland harbor from the Confederates during the Civil War. Lights from houses on Harts Island shone on the opposite shore.