“What kind of competition?”

Abby sat up, energized. “Okay,” she began, counting it off. She’d obviously given this some serious thought. “Number one. The catering. Did we have expensive catering – as in did we just go with the hot dogs, mini-burgers, and pizza – or did we spring for the chocolate fountain? Two. Do we have eucalyptus outdoor furniture or did we go for the teak? Three. Do we have an in-ground or above-ground pool? Four. Did we have a band or just the clown –?”

“I have to tell you, that was one weird frickin’ clown,” Michael said. “Miss Chicken Noodle 1986.”

“I think she was non-union.”

“But we did have a pony. Don’t forget the pony.”

“The pony was a big plus.”

“Even though he crapped in the azaleas.”

“Ponies will do that.”

“Man,” Michael said. “I had no idea about any of this.”

Abby touched his cheek. “My city boy.”

Michael glared. “City boy? City boy? Didn’t you see me with the Weed Eater out there this morning? There is not a man in any one of the five boroughs who can handle a piece of lawn maintenance equipment like that.”

Abby smiled the smile, the one that always started a shiver somewhere around Michael’s forehead and traveled to all regions nether. “Yeah, well,” she began, moving closer, looking at his lips, “I’ve always said you were a man who could handle his equipment.”

Michael smiled, kissed his wife on the nose, got up, bolted into the bathroom, brushed his teeth. When he came out, Abby was sitting up in bed. The only thing she wore was a beautiful navy blue silk tie. It still had the price tag on it.

“That’s the one?” Michael asked.

Abby nodded. It was a ritual for them. Before every big case she would buy him a new tie, a lucky charm to wear during his opening statement. She had not failed yet. With Abby’s magical neckwear Michael had a 100 per cent conviction rate.

“Professor Roman?” Abby asked, gently unknotting the tie and placing it on the nightstand.

“Yes, Nurse Reed?”

“I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

Michael pulled off his shirt. He now had on just a pair of light green hospital scrubs. “Of course.”

“Which of the Brontë sisters’ books would be your favorite?”

Michael laughed. “Well, let me think about this for a second.” He slipped out of his scrubs, under the sheets. “I’d have to say my favorite would be the one about Jane Eyre’s sister Frigid.”

Abby snorted. “Frigid Eyre?”

“Yes. It’s the story of a homely English girl’s quest for sexual adventure.”

Abby shook her head. She put her arms around Michael’s neck. “I can’t believe we never made the connection. Charlotte and Emily. I mean, how many years of higher education do we have between us? Fifteen?”

Of course, for Michael, this was not a rare occurrence. He was twenty-nine before he realized that the ABC song was the same melody as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. In his time he had once prepared a closing argument in a homicide case in less than an hour – with a vicious hangover, no less – and could recite the contributors to Black’s Law (Eighth Edition) by rote. But the subtleties of “Twinkle, Twinkle” were lost on him.

The subtleties of Abby Roman’s body, however, were not.

MIDNIGHT. MICHAEL STOOD in the doorway to the girls’ room. Abby had been right. The girls were both still awake. He entered the room, kneeled between the beds.

“Hi, Daddy,” Charlotte said.

“Hi ladies,” he said. “Did you guys have fun today?”

They both nodded in unison, yawned in harmony. Sometimes they were so different in their outlooks, their problem-solving skills, it was as if they were not even related. Charlotte with her ability to divine logic from chaos. Emily and her sense of color and flair for the dramatic. Other times, most of the time, they seemed to be of one mind, one heart, even more so than the connections that bound most twins.

Michael glanced over at the corner of the room. Their little table was set for tea. It was, as always, arranged for three people. They never put a stuffed bear or bunny in the third chair. It was always just empty. It was one of the many mysteries that were his daughters.

He turned back to the girls as Charlotte pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She crooked her finger, beckoning Michael forward, as if to share a secret. He leaned between the two girls. They often did this when they wanted to tell him something together, an exercise that often ended with a kiss on each cheek. The kiss part was supposed to be a surprise.

“What is it?” Michael asked.

“Ta tuleb,” the two girls said softly.

At first Michael thought he misheard them. It sounded as if they’d said “tattoo” or “the tool.” Neither interpretation made sense. “What did you say?”

“Ta tuleb,” they repeated.

Michael leaned back, a little surprised. He looked back and forth between his daughters, at the four big blue eyes in the soft blush of the nightlight. “Ta tuleb?”

They nodded.

The phrase brought Michael back to his early childhood, to evenings above the Pikk Street Bakery, nights when he would be reading comic books while he was supposed to be doing his homework. When his mother, looking out the kitchen window, her long steel knitting needles in hand, saw Peeter Roman turn the corner onto Ditmars Boulevard, she would yell “ta tuleb!” up the stairs, and Michael would immediately get back to his studies.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Charlotte and Emily looked at each other, shrugged, slipped under the covers. Michael took a moment, still a bit bewildered. He tucked the girls in, planted kisses on their foreheads.

On the way out of the bedroom he stood at the door for a moment, thinking.

Ta tuleb was an Estonian phrase.

His daughters did not speak Estonian.

MICHAEL WALKED INTO the small room on the first floor that served as his office, flipped on a light, opened his briefcase. He studied the photograph of Falynn Harris. She was only fourteen.

Falynn was the daughter of Colin Harris, a Long Island City florist who had been gunned down two years ago in April, murdered in cold blood by one Patrick Sean Ghegan. Ghegan, along with his younger brother Liam, were the demon spawn of Jack Ghegan, a former mid-level Queens mobster currently doing life-plus in Dannemora.

Falynn, who was sneaking a cigarette behind the store, saw the whole thing go down through the back window. She was so traumatized by the horror of the crime she had not said a single word since. And she was the state’s star witness.

Michael Roman had won RICO cases, had prosecuted some of the most hardened career criminals ever to pass through the New York state legal system, had successfully tried two death penalty cases, including the infamous Astrology Killer, had more than once reached for something that far exceeded his grasp, only to thrive. But this one was special. And he knew why. He had lobbied long and hard to get it.

The question was: Could he get Falynn to talk to him? In the next forty-eight hours, with the specter of Colin Harris standing over them, could he get her to remember?

If we will be alive, we will not die.

Coffee. He needed coffee. This was going to be a long night.

On the way to the kitchen he stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced up at the slightly ajar door to his daughters’ room.

Ta tuleb, he thought.

It was an Estonian phrase that meant: He is coming.

As Michael Roman entered the kitchen and took the French press out of the cupboard, a question flitted around his mind like a gypsy moth drawn to a light bulb.

Who is coming?

FOUR

TALLINN, ESTONIA

Aleksander savisaar stood in the center of the bustling square. It was an unseasonably warm evening, the lilies were pregnant in bloom, and Viru Tänav Street was a carnival of the senses.