At about three o’clock he said, “Can we please go off the record?” Nina nodded, and the reporter shut down her machine, stretching her hands.

“Lindy,” Mike said. He held up his big hands. “Quit while you’re ahead.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I’ll give you a million dollars to walk away from this.”

“Keep quiet, Mike,” Riesner said, raising his voice. He took hold of Mike’s arm. “Let’s go in the other room and talk.” Mike shook himself free, his eyes never wavering from Lindy.

“You can’t win. You’re wasting our time. You’re ruining the business.”

“Me?” Lindy was outraged. “I’m not even involved.”

“The longer you force me to screw around with this shit,” Mike said, “the quicker things fall apart at work. Hector, Rachel, they’re running the show, but nobody’s making the big decisions because of that receiver your lawyer put there. We’re not meeting the orders.”

“So get over there and make things right.”

He continued as Lindy spoke, as if deaf to her. “MarDel is suing us. Understand? We’ll go broke if I don’t get back to work, and as long as the receiver’s coming in and sitting in my office, I’m not setting foot in there.”

“I can’t do anything about that.”

“But you can. Use your head,” Mike said. “Let’s make a deal.”

“Don’t say anything,” Nina said to Lindy. “Mr. Riesner, please instruct your client that he is not to address my client directly, or the deposition is over, and I’ll ask for sanctions.”

“Come on, Mike. Other room.” Riesner jerked his head.

“Lindy, take the deal,” Mike said.

“Now you listen,” Lindy said. “You can’t buy me off with half a percent of what the company’s worth. You want me out? Offer me fifty percent or keep your big mouth shut.”

“A million. That’s my offer,” Mike said. “My only offer. I’ll see you in hell before I’ll ask again.” He let out a laugh. “You thought I’d forgotten it, or lost it, didn’t you?” He allowed himself to be stood up and marched into Nina’s office. The door slammed, and they could hear the voices next door, but not the words. Madeleine said, “I think I’ll go chat with Sandy for a minute.” She closed the conference room door behind her.

Nina turned to Lindy. “He didn’t forget it. He didn’t lose it. What do you say to that?”

“I say he’s sinking mighty low. He won’t get away with this.”

“Lindy, that paper changes everything.”

Lindy said nothing.

“I can try for two million, if you want, but at this point, it’s my opinion you won’t do any better. You can put it away, buy a house. You’ll have interest income.”

“No.”

“It may be the best I can do for you, considering.”

“Considering what? This crummy old thing?” Before Nina could prevent it, Lindy reached over, picked up the piece of paper, and tore it into jagged halves. Nina lunged at her, calling, “Sandy!” They struggled. Lindy’s fists had locked fast. Sandy came running in, followed by Riesner and Markov. And then Lindy stopped. Looking as if suddenly all the electricity had failed, leaving her in the dark, her grip loosened. Nina took the pieces out of her hands and gave them back to Riesner.

“How can you humiliate me like this, Mike?” Lindy said calmly. But the calm after the storm held more portent than the actual thunder that had preceded it. “Rachel put you up to this, didn’t she? She’s the one who’s pushing you until you’re like somebody I never met and wouldn’t want to know if I did. This has all gone too far.” She was raving but Nina couldn’t figure out how to stop her. She tried to break in, but was shoved aside and ignored. “I’m going to do what I should have done already and put all of us out of our misery right now. Kill her!”

“Sandy. Take Mrs. Markov out of here,” Nina commanded.

“Well, now,” Riesner said. “Death threats, destruction of evidence. Nice client control, Counselor. I think we’ll be going.”

“But…” Mike said. Lindy had begun to breathe in hiccuping gasps, one way of not crying, Nina suspected. For a moment, Nina thought Mike was going to take her hand.

“Yes, indeed. The deposition is over,” Riesner said. “I’m afraid I have to take this exhibit back with me to ensure it is not destroyed.” Firmly, he edged Mike into the outer office.

The outer door slammed.

“Did you get a copy of that thing, Sandy?” Nina said.

“Right after you broke for lunch,” Sandy answered.

Madeleine, who had been hovering in the doorway, said, “Are we adjourned?”

“Oh, yes,” Nina answered. They were as adjourned as they could be without being stone cold dead.

School started at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty, so the next morning when Nina let herself into the office after dropping Bob off, she knew she would have some time alone. Avoiding the answering machine with its winking light, she went into her office and pulled up the blinds. Snow everywhere, covering up all the dirty tricks and poverty and lies, making everything look so pretty. Turning on the lamp at her desk, she pulled out her checkbooks. Forced-air heating labored valiantly through the grate in the ceiling, the only sound.

She scratched quite a few numbers on her yellow pad and called a couple of credit card automated lines. Fifteen minutes later, she knew everything there was to know. Unlike Markov Enterprises, she didn’t need an expert to figure out which way the wind blew.

Assets: the house on Kulow, equity thirty thousand, mortgage payment fifteen hundred a month. She had sunk all the money left after the divorce into it.

The cottage on Pine Street in Pacific Grove her aunt had left her, value about two hundred thousand. She owned it free and clear. The two students renting it barely covered the property taxes and upkeep.

The Bronco. Value, maybe two thousand considering the rapidity of its disintegration. Her jewelry, clothes, and furniture, another couple of thousand. The office furnishings and equipment, the same.

Accounts receivable. Closely balanced to the accounts payable. Monthly operating expense, including Sandy, about ten thousand.

Credit card debt, for the washer-dryer and the new fridge, fifteen hundred. Not bad at all. That was it, Reilly Enterprises, both sides of the register.

Now she looked at the page on which she had estimated the costs of getting through the Markov trial. She had started out with twenty thousand from Lindy, and only a month later she was down to five thousand, thanks to signing up Paul, Genevieve, and especially Winston.

She had counted on Winston to put up half the costs of the litigation, not to take money out, but Winston had managed to come onboard without putting up anything. In fact, he had taken a ten thousand dollar retainer for himself. He had explained that the IRS was causing him a lot of grief right now, plus his current case had tapped him out. He had made vague promises to come through in the crunch.

Now Winston, her much-vaunted cocounsel, had just lost that major case and probably could not contribute a dime to the costs in advance of trial. And her client had probably lied to her about signing a separate property agreement, which left their case looking weaker than ever. And Lindy had very little more to give.

That left Nina to scrape up enough money to make a major motion picture out of an anemic plot with mediocre box-office potential.

She pushed aside the ominous feelings in her gut. You have to spend money to make money, she said to herself. She leaned back in her chair and put her stockinged feet up on the desk. The heat was making her drowsy. She’d get up and make some coffee… instead she drifted into a reverie.

On the last warm weekend in October, she and Bob had ridden their bikes down the pathways by the Baldwin Mansion. After wearing themselves out, they had stopped and climbed on a rocky pier to check out the lake. Not far away, off to their right she noticed a long white cabin cruiser with the name The Felony written in italics on its impeccable side. At the helm, in a white captain’s hat, the wind whipping his hair so that the bald spot showed, Jeffrey Riesner had stood. He noticed her at the same time and turned so that the wake of his cruiser practically drenched them.