The final blow was the report of an emergency room physician at Saint John’s Hospital: Meserve and Brand claimed to have gone without food for two days but their electrolyte tests were normal. Furthermore, neither victim exhibited signs of serious injury other than rope burn and some “mild” bruising of Michaela’s vagina that could’ve been consistent with “self-infliction.”

Faced with the evidence, the couple broke down, admitted the hoax, and were charged with obstructing officers and filing a false police report. Both pleaded poverty, and public defenders were assigned.

Michaela’s D.P.D. was a man named Lauritz Montez. He and I had met nearly a decade ago on a particularly repellent case: the murder of a two-year-old girl by two preadolescent boys, one of whom had been Montez’s client. The ugliness had resurfaced last year when one of the killers, now a young man, had phoned me out within days of his release from prison and turned up dead hours later.

Lauritz Montez hadn’t liked me to begin with and my digging up the past had made matters worse. So I was puzzled when he called and asked me to evaluate Michaela Brand.

“Why would I kid, Doctor?”

“We didn’t exactly hit it off.”

“I’m not inviting you to hang out,” he said. “You’re a smart shrink and I want her to have a solid report behind her.”

“She’s charged with misdemeanors,” I said.

“Yeah, but the sheriff’s pissed and is pushing the D.A. to go for jail time. We’re talking a mixed-up kid who did something stupid. She feels bad enough.”

“You want me to say she was mentally incapacitated.”

Montez laughed. “Temporary raving-lunacy-insanity would be great but I know you’re all pissy-anty about small details like facts. So just tell it like it was: She was addled, caught in a weak moment, swept along. I’m sure there’s some technical term for it.”

“The truth,” I said.

He laughed again. “Will you do it?”

The plastic surgeons’ little girl had started talking, but both parents’ lawyers had phoned this morning and informed me the case had been resolved and my services were no longer necessary.

“Sure,” I said.

“Seriously?” said Montez.

“Why not?”

“It didn’t go that smoothly on Duchay.”

“How could it?”

“True. Okay, I’ll have her call and make an appointment. Do my best to get you some kind of reimbursement. Within reason.”

“Reason’s always good.”

“And so rare.”

Michaela Brand came to see me four days later.

I work out of my house above Beverly Glen. In mid-November the whole city’s pretty, nowhere more so than the Glen.

She smiled and said, “Hi, Dr. Delaware. Wow, what a great place, my name’s pronounced Mick-aah-la.”

The smile was heavy firepower in the battle to be noticed. I walked her through high, white, hollow space to my office at the back.

Tall and narrow-hipped and busty, she put a lot of roll-and-sway into her walk. If her breasts weren’t real, their free movement was an ad for a great scalpel artist. Her face was oval and smooth, blessed by wide-set aquamarine eyes that could feign spontaneous fascination without much effort, balanced perfectly on a long, smooth stalk of a neck.

Faint bruising along the sides of the neck were masked by body makeup. The rest of her skin was bronze velvet stretched across fine bones. Tanning bed or one of those spray jobs that last for a week. Tiny, mocha freckles sprinkled across her nose hinted at her natural complexion. Wide lips were enlarged by gloss. A mass of honey-colored hair trailed past her shoulder blades. Some stylist had taken a long time to texturize the ’do and make it look careless. Half a dozen shades of blond aped nature.

Her black, stovepipe jeans hung nearly low enough to require a pubic wax. Her hip bones were smooth little knobs calling out for a tango partner. A black jersey, cap-sleeved T-shirt rhinestoned Porn Star ended an inch above a wry smile of navel. The same flawless golden dermis sheathed a drum-tight abdomen. Her nails were long and French-tipped, her false lashes perfect. Plucked brows added to the illusion of permanent surprise.

Lots of time and money spent to augment lucky chromosomes. She’d convinced the court system she was poor. Turned out she was, the debit card finished, two hundred bucks left in her checking account.

“I got my landlord to extend me a month,” she said, “but unless I clear this up soon and get another job, I’m going to get evicted.”

Tears welled in the blue-green eyes. Clouds of hair tossed and fluffed and resettled. Despite her long legs, she’d managed to curl up in the big leather patient’s chair and look small.

“What does clearing it up mean to you?” I said.

“Pardon?”

“Clearing it up.”

“You know,” she said. “I need to get rid of…this, this mess.”

I nodded and she cocked her head like a puppy. “Lauritz said you were the best.”

First-name basis with her lawyer. I wondered if Montez had been motivated by more than professional responsibility.

Stop, suspicious fellow. Focus on the patient.

This patient was leaning forward and smiling shyly, loose breasts cupping black jersey. I said, “What did Mr. Montez tell you about this evaluation?”

“That I should open myself up emotionally.” She poked at a corner of one eye. Dropped her hand and ran her finger along a black-denim knee.

“Open yourself up how?”

“You know, not hold back from you, just basically be myself. I’m…”

I waited.

She said, “I’m glad it’s you. You seem kind.” She curled one leg under the other.

I said, “Tell me how it happened, Michaela.”

“How what happened?”

“The phony abduction.”

She flinched. “You don’t want to know about my childhood or anything?”

“We may get into that later, but it’s best to start with the hoax itself. I’d like to hear what happened in your words.”

“My words. Boy.” Half smile. “No foreplay, huh?”

I smiled back. She unfolded her legs and a pair of high-heeled black Skechers alit on the carpet. She flexed one foot. Looked around the office. “I know I did wrong but I’m a good girl, Doctor. I really am.”

She crossed her arms over the Porn Star logo. “Where to start…I have to tell you, I feel so exposed.”

I pictured her rushing onto the road, naked, nearly causing an old man to drive his truck off a cliff. “I know it’s tough to think about what you did, Michaela, but it could be really helpful to get used to talking about it.”

“So you can understand me?”

“That,” I said, “but also at some point you might be required to allocate.”

“What’s that?”

“To tell the judge what you did.”

“Confession,” she said. “It’s a fancy word for confession?”

“I guess it is.”

“All these words they use.” She laughed softly. “At least I’m learning stuff.”

“Probably not the way you wanted to.”

“That’s for sure…lawyers, cops. I don’t even remember who I told what.”

“It’s pretty confusing,” I said.

“Totally, Doctor. I have a thing for that.”

“For what?”

“Confusion. Back in Phoenix- in high school- some people used to think I was an airhead. The brainiacs, you know? Truth is, I got confused a lot. Still do. Maybe it’s because I fell on my head when I was a little kid. Fell off a swing and passed out. After that I never really did too good in school.”

“Sounds like a bad fall.”

“I don’t remember much about it, Doctor, but they told me I was unconscious for half a day.”

“How old were you?”

“Maybe three. Four. I was swinging high, used to love to swing. Must’ve let go or something and went flying. I hit my head other times, too. I was always falling, tripping over myself. My legs grew so fast, when I was fifteen I went from five feet to five eight in six months.”