He kissed her for a full minute.

Weird.

Lillick realized that he'd left the recorder on the sampler running, it would store every sound in the room for the next twenty minutes. He supposed he should shut it off but in fact he didn't really want to get up. Besides, he figured, you never knew when you could use some good sound effects.

Taylor wasn't sure when the idea occurred to her – probably 4 or 5 A.M. as she lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the city. She was in a half-waking, half-dreaming state – in Wonderland or on the far side of the looking glass.

She'd been thinking about the evidence she'd gathered. A brief comparison of the prints on the safe with her suspects – Sebastian, Lillick and Dudley – wasn't conclusive but it was more likely than not that Sebastian had left several prints on the safe.

But was there any way to verify that he – or someone else – had been in the firm that Saturday night, other than through the time sheets and key card entry logs.

Sure, she realized, there was. The thief might've taken a cab or car service limo to the firm that late at night. And he might've just used his real name and employee number on the reimbursement or payment voucher.

And copiers too. If he'd been in the firm for some legitimate reason he might've used a copier – you had to use a special key, with your number on it, to activate the machine.

Or, she thought, excited about these leads, the thief might have logged onto one of the Lexis/Nexis computers.

Or used the phone.

Every service or function within the firm that can be charged to a client (plus a delightful 300 percent markup for overhead) is recorded in the firm computers.

She glanced at the clock 7:40 A.M.

Brother.

Exhausted, she rolled out of bed. At least she didn't have a hangover – and she'd managed to change into boxers and a T-shirt last night, saving her skin from more stigmatas of Victoria 's Secret.

Let's go, Alice. This is getting curiouser and curiouser.

At 9 A.M. exactly Taylor was standing in the accounting department at Hubbard, White & Willis.

"I'm doing a bill for Mitchell Reece," she told the computer operator. "Can you let me see the copier card, taxi and car service voucher ledger, phone records and Lexis/Nexis log-ons for last Saturday and Sunday?"

"It's not the end of the month." The operator snapped her gum.

"Mitchell wants to give the client an estimate."

Snap

"An estimate of disbursements? It couldn't be more than a thousand bucks. Who'd care?"

"If you don't mind," Taylor said sweetly. "Please."

Snap. "I guess." The woman hunched over the keys and typed several lines. She frowned and typed again.

Taylor bent over the computer screen The screen was blank.

Snap, snap

"I don't know what's going on. There s no taxi vouchers. There always are on Saturday." Taylor knew this very well. The rule was if you had to work on Saturday the firm paid for your taxi to and from your apartment or house.

Alarmed, Taylor said, "How about the copiers?"

The fingernails tapped. The operator squinted, tapped some more and stared at the screen. "Well, this's damn funny."

"Nobody made any copies either."

"You got it."

Snap

"Phones? Lexis/Nexis?"

The clattering of keys. "Nothing."

Taylor asked, "You think the files were erased?"

"Hold on a minute." Her fingers tapped as noisily as her popping gum.

Snap, snap

The young woman looked up. "That's it. Erased. Must've had a software hiccup or something. The disbursement and incidental expense files for the past week've been deleted. Taxis, meals, copiers, even the phones. All gone."

"Has that ever happened before?"

"Nup. Never."

Snap.

Sean Lillick stopped by Carrie Masons cubicle to say good morning to her.

He could tell immediately how pleased she was to see him comply with the famous morning-after rule.

They talked for a few minutes and then he said how much he wanted a cup of coffee and, as he'd expected, she was on her feet immediately and asking him, "How do you want it?"

"Black," he answered because even though he liked a lot of sugar it was cooler to say. "Black."

"Sure I'll be right back."

"You don't have to -" he started to say.

"No problem."

She trotted off down the hallway.

Which gave him the chance to put her computer room access card back into her purse.

That's what'd been so weird last night.

The fact that the sex had been initiated by her.

Because the whole point of calling her up was to get her over to his place, get her drunk, seduce her and when she was dozing afterward steal her access card, which would allow him to erase the telltale files of expenses – like the taxi he'd taken from the firm to the office of the plaintiff's lawyer in the St Agnes case, or the phone calls he'd made about the new lease with Rothstem. After he'd talked to Wendall Clayton earlier Lillick had realized that he had been pretty careless and needed to, as the partner had said, "snip some ends".

Hence, the grand seduction last night.

Weird

Carrie now returned with the coffee and when she handed it to him their hands met and they looked into each other's eyes for a moment. It took perhaps two seconds for the guilt to prod him into looking away and he said quickly, "Got a big project. Better run I'll call you."

Donald Burdick believed that bringing one's first client into a law firm was the most significant milestone in the career of a Wall Street lawyer.

Unlike graduation from law school, unlike admission to the bar, unlike being made partner – all of which are significant but abstract stages in a lawyer's life – hooking a money-paying client was what distinguished, in his metaphor, the nobility from the gentry.

Many years ago Burdick – a young, newly made partner at Hubbard, White & Willis – had just finished the eighteenth hole at Meadowbrook Club on Long Island when one of the foursome turned to him and said, "Say, Donald, I hear good things about you. Legal-wise, I'm saying. You interested in doing a little work for a hospital?"

That had been on a Sunday afternoon and two days later Burdick had presented to the executive committee of the firm his first signed retainer agreement – with the huge St Agnes Hospital complex in Manhattan.

At nine-thirty this morning Donald Burdick sat in his office with the chief executive officer of St Agnes, a tall, middle-aged, mild-spoken veteran of hospital administration. Also present were Fred LaDue, the senior litigation partner handling the malpractice case against the hospital, and Mitchell Reece.

Three of these four appeared very unhappy, though for different reasons Burdick, because of what he'd learned last night -that with the new witness St Agnes would probably lose the malpractice trial, which would make the hospital throw its support to Clayton and the pro-merger crowd. The CEO, of course, because his hospital now stood to lose millions of dollars Lawyer LaDue, because Burdick had summarily ordered that he stand down today and that a young associate Mitchell Reece, take over the cross-examination of the new witness.

Reece, on the other hand, was calm as a priest though it was clear the man hadn't had more than a few hours' sleep. He'd been preparing virtually nonstop since Burdick and LaDue had briefed him last night around 9 P.M.

"Who is this guy?" the CEO asked. "The witness?"

"That's the problem. He was working at St Agnes when they brought the plaintiff in. He didn't treat the patient himself but he was in the room the whole time."