He was nodding. “Now that’s what I call money,” he said. “Five million for each of us if we won that much. I could pay all those back taxes the IRS is asking for. I could pay off the place in Bel Air and the alimony. I could take that vacation my doctor’s been ordering. But…”

“But?”

He spilled a drop of the wine into his plate. “There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” he said. “Somehow, with all my wins, the amount of money I really need to solve all my problems always seems to hover just out of reach. Have you noticed that? It’s like a dark force out there that steps between us and our just deserts, leaving us to salivate and starve and wonder why. Even if we win at trial, appeals take years. And nobody ever comes out with any money on appeal.”

“Not this time. Working together, we can make it happen if anyone can. Everyone tells me you’re the top attorney in this field.”

“Those are kind words,” he said. “Thank you. You’ve probably guessed, I like being flattered, even when it is necessary.”

He was mocking her. She refused to be waylaid. “I doubt Jeff Riesner’s made an offer as generous,” she said.

“Ah. So you’ve guessed. Yes, Jeff and I worked together on a case last year out of Sacramento. He has called my office several times in the past few days.”

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“No.”

“You knew it was about the Markov case?”

“That’s what the message said.”

“So…”

“I can’t abide the guy,” Reynolds said, smiling. “Even if he’s going to be the one on the winning side.”

Now she felt offended. “Mr. Reynolds,” Nina said, “am I wasting my time? Because I get the feeling you’re not listening. And if you can’t take me seriously, I should probably leave.”

“Now, hold on,” he answered, “I’m hanging on every word. You’re offering me the chance to spend time at Lake Tahoe, which I love, and to take a gamble on big money, which involves a minor weakness of mine, as you may already have surmised. And I think we have something in common. We’d both rather represent the underdog. I apologize if I’ve given the wrong impression. It’s a bad habit that comes from keeping people off balance as a matter of course. Even playing second fiddle, I’d kill to get on this case.” He raised his glass. “A toast,” he said, “to you.”

Nina raised her glass, too. “You’re in?” she asked.

“You betcha.”

By the time the food came, presented so artistically on exquisite plates she hated to disturb it, they had finished the wine, started using first names with each other, and hammered out the beginnings of a deal. She offered him an office across the hall, and he said he would come up for a meeting as soon as his trial was over.

“I’ve got a jury consultant for us that might just be available. Young and the hottest ticket in town. Her name’s Genevieve Suchat,” he said, as they started on their green tea ice cream.

“I think I’ve heard of her, but…”

“Now, this is no time to scrimp on help. You’ve got to spend money to make money.”

“Winston, I…”

“She’s got a slight hearing problem, but that doesn’t slow her down for a second. Wears a little thing in her ear but you don’t strike me as the type who’s going to hold that against her.”

“Well, of course not!”

“She worked with me on a case down in Long Beach. Just as smooth and cool as this ice cream.”

“Did you win?”

“We did. She has won almost every case she’s been associated with.” He took a sip of water and pushed the ice cream saucer away. He had finally slowed down.

“Jury consultants spend a lot of time on research, don’t they? I have to think about keeping our expenses down,” Nina said.

“Now, wait a minute here. It doesn’t make financial sense to use them in every civil litigation, but with so much money at stake in this case, you’d be nuts not to use one. I’ve never heard of a case of this size that didn’t have jury consultants on both sides. Nina, you want to be a winner, you have to leave no stone unturned. And you know our friend Riesner’s going to get the best.”

He didn’t say “again,” although they both thought it. He knew how to play her already, didn’t he?

“Why not talk to her?” he went on.

“Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll talk to her. Maybe we can limit her involvement…”

“Bold strokes,” Winston said. “No limits. This case is too big. We go for broke, with Genevieve, with everything. Because that’s what real winners do. You know I’m right.”

He was right, but the “go for broke” line had chimed louder than everything else he’d said, and continued to ring in her ears. Her dad used to say that all the time, and one day he had woken up flat broke.

“I’ll call your office and arrange a meeting right away,” he said, then ordered another bottle of wine. He talked about his background, his football scholarship to UCLA, the shock of his teachers and coaches when he walked away from it and immersed himself in academics, his law school studies at Yale, the two ex-wives and the three children he supported. He was full of himself, but maybe he had a right to be. She couldn’t help liking him.

The coffee came, and the frightful check. Her watch said eleven o’clock. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve got a plane waiting. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She paused, then said, “I’m thrilled to be working with you, Win.” She stuck out her hand.

“Cinderella,” he said, taking her hand between both of his, “better find both dancing slippers, fast. We’ve got a long way to go if we’re gonna avoid getting stuck with a pumpkin.”

The next morning, Nina called Sandy to tell her she might not get into the office until after lunch. Sandy said that Genevieve Suchat, the jury consultant, was due in the afternoon. Apparently determined to convince Nina to hire her, Winston had made the arrangements with impressive efficiency.

After taking two white pills to quiet the pounding in her head, she drove straight to the Markov house on Cascade Road. Rain slammed the road outside and her wipers slapped a quick, useless path through the river flowing down her windshield. An unexpected skid around a hairpin curve forced her to slow as she wound along a dirt road that hugged the lake’s edge.

Iron gates with gilt-tipped arrows on top stood open, and behind them a massive stone mansion met her eyes, turreted like a castle, surrounded by grounds so well-groomed the plants looked manufactured.

She pulled into a spot close to the house, awed at the ostentation and thinking how very, very much money it would take to build such a thing in California, on the shore of the state’s most desirable lake.

No umbrella presented itself in the box of emergency items on the floor of the littered backseat, so she rushed to the front door and rang the bell, narrowly avoiding a fatal slip off of the slick doorstep. In the relentless rain, the gigantic house loomed over her like a pile of boulders ready at any moment to give way in a landslide. Even the lake, merging its gray into the sky, had a leaden pull to it, as if the heavy gray water exerted more gravity than the rest of the earth.

Lindy answered, looking gaunt in a loose-fitting kimono over a black bodysuit. In spite of her impeccable hair and makeup, Nina could detect signs of the recent travails in her face.

“Thanks for coming,” Lindy said. “Let me take your jacket. You can leave the boots there.” She pointed to a stone bench under which resided the cleanest-looking shoes Nina had ever seen outside of a store display. Next to the bench were a dozen stacked cardboard boxes.

Lindy led Nina down a hallway, past two octagonal foyers, and through an oak-floored room as big as a ballroom. Above them, fighting to conquer the dismal day, crystal chandeliers lighted the way, swaying slightly in an invisible breeze.

They walked on. With blackened slate over many of the passageway floors, stone walls and rain pouring down the windows, the most brilliant lighting could not entirely exorcise a Gothic creepiness from the house.