"Does she think of you as her parents?"

Edelman was a lawyer, but he wasn't glib. He thought seriously about Jackie's question, taking it apart in his mind and examining each word. "We think of her as our daughter. She calls us Mom and Dad. But she's aware of not being related to us by blood."

"Has she ever asked about me? About her mother, I mean?"

Edelman shook his head. "It's always been assumed her mother was dead. That's why we find ourselves in this delicate situation."

"What situation?"

Again, that same nervous exchange of looks among Edelman and the other two. You tell. No, you. Again, Edelman was stuck with the short straw.

"As Ms. Chu said, the state has official custody of Sam, but your parental rights were never terminated. You were thought to be dead and Sam's birth certificate listed no known father. But you're alive."

"I knew that when I came in here," Jackie snapped. "What I don't know is what you're dancing around here."

The general counsel sighed. "Samantha King is your daughter. You are within your rights to petition the Foster Care Review board to return her to you. Given the circumstances, there is nothing we can do to keep you from taking the girl from the Edelmans."

Tess could see Jackie was at once attracted to this idea-and terrified of it. She could have her daughter back.

"What does-" Apparently she wouldn't allow herself to say her daughter's name. "What does she want? Does she want to stay with you, or would she want to be with me?"

"I wouldn't presume to speak for Sam. Her biological mother has always been an abstract idea to her, just a name, Susan King, nothing more. We tried to find her death certificate once, but when it didn't show up, we assumed she must have died somewhere outside of Maryland."

"Then you're inept, as is the state," Tess broke in. "I found Susan King in less than three days. A Chicago Title search would have taken you right to her. You would have found the name change. You're a lawyer, you should have known that much."

Jackie put out her arm, as if to hold her back, the same gesture a driver might make when making a sudden stop. "I was at Penn ten years ago. Even if they had found my name change, they probably wouldn't have tracked me there."

"We did file a lien against you, for child support," the general counsel offered, a little abashedly. Tess remembered that stray lien against Susan King that Dorie had picked up, the one she had dismissed as so many unpaid parking tickets. "We're entitled by law to collect support retroactively, given your present circumstances. But we're going to waive that in this case."

"Big of you," Tess muttered. "Awfully big of you."

She had expected Jackie to be even angrier than she was, but Jackie was as dazed as a sleepwalker. She opened her purse, staring into it as if all life's answers might be resting beside her lipstick, checkbook, and Mont Blanc pen, then snapped it shut resolutely.

"Do you have a photo of her?" she asked Edelman.

"What?"

"Do you carry a photo of her, in your wallet?"

"An old one. She wouldn't let me buy this year's school picture. She said it made her look fat." He pulled it out and flipped past photos of two freckled, red-haired boys to a girl with tawny hair, brown eyes, and a dark olive complexion. Jackie stared at it a long time, then handed the wallet back to Edelman.

"I'd like to see her," she said.

"You just did."

"I'd like to see her in person. You don't have to tell her who I am, just yet. But I have to see her before I can decide what I'm going to do."

"We're the only parents she's ever known," Edelman said. He sounded as if he might cry. "She's so happy with us. Our sons worship her. We wouldn't be a family without Sam."

"I believe you," Jackie said. "Now when can I see her?"

Chapter 24

They finally agreed on Wednesday, after school. Jackie and Tess would have tea with Molly Edelman, all very civilized, make polite chit-chat while Jackie observed her daughter. But Wednesday was also the day of the crab feast at her mother's, and Tess also had to make a fruit salad. Not just any fruit salad, either, but Gramma's favorite, with a particular poppy seed dressing and all sorts of conditions and regulations involving the fruit. (No kiwi, green grapes not red, extra strawberries, all melon must be balled.) She was assembling it in the small kitchen in her office, when Tull knocked.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said, holding up her hands. "I'd shake, but I'm juicy."

Tull reached into the cookie jar and tossed Esskay a bone. The dog gulped it down gratefully, then returned to the kitchen to keep her vigil near the fruit salad. Esskay liked melon, balled or not.

"The baby-" Tull began.

"Laylah."

"Yeah, Laylah. She's been moved to a group home. The sister-in-law took her for a few days, then decided she couldn't handle it."

"I can't decide if that's good or bad."

"I did some checking on the place where they put her. It's pretty nice. Out in the country, lots of land. Woman usually takes in HIV-positive babies and special needs cases, but she had a vacancy just now."

"Great. I mean, not great, but okay, I guess." Although Tess wondered if Laylah, who had no "special" needs, would get as much attention as the others. Being an eight-month-old orphan wasn't considered all that special, not alongside children with disabilities and the AIDS virus.

Tull continued to stand there, looking strange and uncomfortable.

"About Luther Beale," he said.

"What about him?" She had gone back to her fruit salad.

"Just be careful, okay? The double homicide-it turns out he doesn't have an alibi. Home alone, listening to the radio."

"But you said it was probably drugs. You said you were going to question him just to fuck with his head."

"Yeah, well, Lavon and Keisha weren't involved in drugs, as far as we can tell. Sure, she was ripping off social services, claiming the baby's father wasn't around. But Lavon was doing painting work on a cash-only basis. Real reliable, according to his boss. No sign that either of them used drugs, much less sold 'em."

"So what are you saying?"

Tull met her eyes. There was no oneupmanship in his gaze, no sense of triumph or I-told-you-so, just concern, direct and simple. "I'm saying someone killed Destiny Teeter and made, it look like a trick gone bad. Someone bashed in Treasure Teeter's head and tried to make it look like he burned himself up. And someone killed Lavon and Keisha in a way that made us suspect a drug hit. I'm saying I want you to keep carrying your gun, and I want you to be careful."

"Even if Beale did any of these things-and I don't think he did-why would he hurt me?"

"Because this killer is crazy, and getting crazier. Because this killer is beginning to strike out at anyone even tangentially related to Donnie Moore. We're keeping watch on the prosecutor from the case, the judge, the Nelsons down in D.C. But you're on your own, Tess. I can't protect you from your own client."

"And Sal?" Tess asked. "You're watching Sal?"

"Sal's the easiest one to protect. He's staying at Penfield for the summer session. They even got him a bodyguard for when he wants to leave the premises."

Tess bet Sal just loved that. A bodyguard. Just another reminder that he wasn't anywhere near as tough as he thought he was.

Tull turned to leave.

"Martin-" Funny how strange his first name felt in her mouth.

"Yeah?"

"Tell me something about yourself, something personal. Anything. Something about your marriage, or why it ended."

He deliberated for a moment. "We had a cat."

"The marriage ended because you had a cat?"

"Give me a second. You asked for a story, then you charge right in, interrupting me. We had a cat. He was named Stanley, because he had this weird meow, it sounded like he was yelling ‘Stella.' I kid you not. I loved that cat. The night my wife left me, she took Stan. She also took everything else-our bed, the air conditioning units, the major appliances. I mean, she took the fucking stove, okay? But she left the litter box. I think she was trying to tell me something."