“Think we should take her out for a little test drive?” Mal said. “Whatya say?” Michelle hesitated. “C’mon,” he said, grinning, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He handed her a second cell phone. “Number’s already punched in. Just remember, it’s just a toy until the fourth ring. That’s a no-no. You don’t want to hear the fourth ring. Take the wheel, honey… Let her rip.”

Michelle shook her head and handed it back to him. Mal merely grinned.

“C’mon, nothing to worry about. No juice, no boost. It’s all set up.”

Michelle took a deep breath and pressed the SEND button, just to show she could. A second later, the phone wired to the bomb jangled.

“Contact.” Malcolm winked.

A chill shot through her. Mal was so confident. He had it all planned. But things could go wrong. In the Middle East, Palestinian bombers blew themselves up all the time.

Beep. Her eyes went to the briefcase. Second ring. She tried to look calm, but her hand was shaking. “Malcolm, please.” She tried to give it back. “You see it works. I don’t like this, please.…”

“Please, what, Mica?” Malcolm held her wrist. “You don’t trust me?”

The bomb phone jangled again. Third ring …

Michelle’s blood went cold. “Cut it out, Mal.” She fumbled for the disconnect button.

The next ring was contact. “Malcolm, please, you’re scaring me.”

Instead of complying, Mal pinned her hand. All of a sudden she didn’t know what was going on. “Jesus, Mal, it’s about to —”

Beep. Fourth ring.

The sound split the room like a scream. Michelle’s gaze locked on the phone. On the bomb.

It began to vibrate. Oh shit… She looked into Malcolm’s eyes.

A buzzer sounded.

No explosion. No flash. Just a sharp click.

On the blasting cap.

Malcolm was grinning. He lifted the disengaged cap he’d been holding. “I told you, baby. No juice, no boost. So what’d you think? I think it drives just fine.”

Michelle’s body relaxed. Inside, she was screaming. She wanted to punch Malcolm in the face. But she was too spent. Sweat was pouring through her T-shirt.

Malcolm took the blasting cap and wheeled the chair back over to the device. “You think I was gonna set this beauty off?” He shook his head. “Fat chance, baby. She’s got important work to do. This bomb is going to blow the minds of everybody in San Francisco.”

About seven, I was back at my desk. My teams scattered all around the area, chasing the leads we had. Cindy had gotten me a copy of this book, Vampire Capitalism. She said it would give me an idea of the new radicalism that was starting to take hold.

I flipped through the chapter headings: “The Failure of Capitalism.” “Economic Apartheid.” “Vampire Economics.” “The Armageddon of Greed.”

I didn’t even notice Jill standing at my door. She knocked, making me jump. “If only John Ashcroft could see you. The linchpin of the city’s law-enforcement machine … Vampire Capitalism?”

“Required reading,” I said, smiling, embarrassed, “for the serial killer with a bang.”

She was dressed in a stylish red pantsuit and a Burberry summer raincoat, a pile of briefs squeezed into her leather satchel. “I figured you could use a drink.”

“I could,” I said, tapping the book against the desk, “but I’m still on duty.” I offered her a bag of Szechuan soybeans instead.

“What are you doing,” she snickered, “heading up the department’s new Subversive Authors wing?”

“Very cute,” I said. “Here’s a fact I bet you didn’t know. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Warren Buffet made more money last year than the thirty poorest countries, a quarter of the world’s population.”

Jill smiled. “It’s good to see you developing a social consciousness, given your line of work.”

“There’s something bothering me, Jill. The fake secondary device outside Lightower’s town house. The note on the company form balled up in Bengosian’s mouth. These people have made their motive clear. But they’re trying to taunt us. Why play the game?”

She balanced a red shoe on the edge of my desk. “I don’t know. You’re the one who catches ’em, honey. I just put ’em away.”

There was a bit of a pause. A stiff one. “You mind if I change the subject?”

“Your soybeans,” she said with a shrug, popping one in her mouth.

“I don’t know if this’ll sound silly. I was a little worried the other day. Sunday. After we ran. Those marks, Jill. On your arms. Something got me thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” she asked.

I looked into her eyes. “I know you didn’t get those marks from a shower door. I know what it’s like, Jill, when you have to admit you’re human, like the rest of us. I know how you wanted that baby. Then your dad died. I know you pretend that you can work everything out. But maybe you can’t sometimes. You won’t talk about it with anyone, even us. So the answer is, I don’t know about those marks. You tell me.”

There was stubbornness in her eyes that suddenly turned fragile, something about to give. I didn’t know if I had gone too far, but to hell with it, she was my friend. All I wanted was for her to be happy.

“Maybe you’re right about one thing,” Jill finally said. “Maybe those marks didn’t come from a shower door.”

There are crimes that are brutal and inexcusable. Sometimes they make me sick, but their motives are open. Now and then, I even understand. Then there are the hidden crimes. The ones you are never meant to see. The kind of cruelty that barely breaks the skin but crushes what’s inside, the little voice that is human in all of us.

These are the ones that really make me wonder about what I do for a living.

After Jill told me what had been going on between her and Steve, after I wiped her tears and cried with her like a little sister, I drove home in a daze. A pall had clung to her face, a whitewash of shame I will never forget. Jill, my Jill.

My first instinct was to drive over there that night and slap a charge on Steve. All along, the slick, self-righteous prick had been bullying her, hitting her.

All I could think of was Jill, the face I saw on her, that of a little girl. Not the Chief Assistant D.A., top of her class at Stanford, who seemed to breeze through life. Who put murderers away with that icy stare. My friend.

I tossed and turned the whole night. The following morning, it took all I had to focus on the case. Overnight the lab tests confirmed Claire’s findings. It was ricin that had been ingested by George Bengosian.

I had never seen the Hall as tense as it was that morning, bustling with dark-suited Feds and media managers. I felt as if I was sneaking past security just to call Cindy and Claire.

“I need to see you guys,” I told them. “It’s important. I’ll meet you at Susie’s at noon.”

By the time I arrived at the quiet counter caf? down Bryant, Cindy and Claire were squeezed into a corner booth. Both wore anxious looks.

“Where’s Jill?” asked Cindy. “We figured she was coming with you.”

“I didn’t ask her,” I said. I sat in the seat across from them. “This is about Jill.”

“Okay …” Claire nodded, confused.

Piece by piece, I took them through my first suspicions about the marks I had seen on Jill while we were jogging. How I didn’t like the looks of them and how maybe, in the aftermath of losing the baby, she had done them to herself.

“That’s ancient history,” Cindy shot in. “Isn’t it?”

“You asked her?” asked Claire. Her gaze was deadly serious.

I nodded, my gaze fixed on hers.

“And …?”

“She said, ‘What if I didn’t make those marks myself?’”

I watched Claire studying me, trying to read my face. Cindy blinking, beginning to understand.

“Oh, Jesus,” muttered Claire. “For God’s sake, you don’t mean Steve …”

I nodded, swallowed.