Mrs. Becker actually began to say something, as if Jackie expected an answer, but she was silenced by one stern look from her husband. Tess couldn't help thinking that the voided adoption was one of the best things that ever happened to Samantha King. Dr. Becker would have managed to snuff out that exuberant girl's soul long ago, while his silly wife just looked on.

"You know, I know people," the doctor said. "Important people. You might find your job a lot harder to do in the future if you cash that check."

For the first time, Jackie looked hesitant, unsure. Her career was the kind built by word of mouth, Tess realized, and it could be destroyed by it as well.

"You people think you run the city now." Dr. Becker had found his advantage and was pressing forward, cruel and heedless. "Well you don't. It's the people with money who are in control, white or black. That check may be the last anyone ever writes you. Think about that."

As Jackie just sat, studying the check, Tess reached out and grabbed the doctor's hand. "Where are my manners? Tess Monaghan, I should have introduced myself when I came in. I'm a private investigator, but I used to be a reporter in town and I still have a lot of reporter friends. I think they would love to hear about the prominent Doctor Becker-ACLU member, friend of the Chesapeake Bay-who reneged on an adoption because the child wasn't white. Throw in the Willa Mott angle and it's a national story, don't you think?"

"We told you, it was because the agency lied," Becker said, almost sputtering in his rage. "You keep making it sound as if we were racists."

"No, I think it was your use of ‘you people' that made you sound like a racist. Anyway, that's how it will end up, unless you leave Jackie alone. Trust me. The top editor of the Beacon-Light owes me a favor or two, and I'm willing to call the chit in for this."

"And I work at the NSA," Judith put in suddenly. "You don't even want to contemplate what I can do to you."

Tess doubted that her mother could do much more than instruct the clerk-typists under her supervision to write a really scary letter, but it was the National Security Agency. Who knew what powers her mother really had?

The doctor nodded sullenly, but Tess didn't trust him. There was nothing to keep him from calling the police as soon as they left, or setting in motion his grapevine scheme to undercut Jackie's business.

"Now we're going to leave here and I'm going to make sure any paper work linking you to Samantha King is destroyed, although Jackie will keep a copy. That will keep you quiet?"

Another tight little nod from Herr Doktor.

"He's not going to let it go," Jackie said. "He's going to find a way to get back at me, if only because he's humiliated."

"No, he's not," Judith said emphatically. "After all, you have an alibi. You were never here."

"Oh yeah? Where was I?"

"Across town, at a crab feast with twenty other people."

Tess looked at her mother. She had always thought her ability to lie, to think on her feet, must come down on Patrick's side, but maybe it was a Weinstein trait as well.

"I don't get it," Jackie said. "Who would do that for me?"

"Your daughter's family," Tess said.

Judith drove Tess's car back to the Monaghans', while Tess piloted Jackie in her white Lexus for the second time that day.

"You shouldn't have stolen my gun," she chided, once they were alone.

"Next time, don't leave it untended," Jackie said, not at all repentant.

"You scared me to death. I thought you were going to kill yourself, or them."

"Why would I destroy my life like that after all the work I put into recreating it? I wanted to hurt them, and money was the way to do that. Probably the only way with people like them." Jackie laughed, pleased with herself. For the next mile or two, they didn't say anything, but it was a comfortable silence. The kind of silence that friends can endure.

When Jackie spoke again, her voice was soft and tentative. "I was hurt and I wanted to hurt someone else. You know, I started off by wanting to hurt you."

"Hurt me?"

"Why do you think I hired you in the first place? I wanted to get back at you for being the girl on the other side of the soda fountain, the one who had the real childhood, while I had to work my way through high school, then college."

"Poppa meant to pay for your tuition. Gramma was the one who wouldn't let him."

"She knew?"

"So it seems."

"Poor woman."

"Poor woman? She forced Poppa to renege on his promise to you."

"Well, how would you like to be the woman whose husband comes home and says, ‘Remember that eighteen-year-old girl I knocked up? I think we should send her to college.'"

Jackie had a point. For all her anger, she could always see the big picture, see things outside herself. Tess should learn to do the same. She smiled. Truth be told, it cracked her up, the image of Jackie sitting across from the Beckers at her little extortion tea party, reeling off her facts and figures about the welfare system. Only Jackie would make a revenge scheme so didactic.

"Hey, that stuff you said about the economics of the system. Was that made up, or was it true?"

"Oh, I may have been off on the actual numbers, and everything's different since welfare reform. But the proportions were right. People pay thousands to adopt babies, welfare mothers get pennies to keep them."

"And the foster parents receive bigger stipends than the mothers?"

"Oh yeah. But they also have to meet higher standards than the welfare mothers-separate bedrooms, stuff like that. Remember, that's why they took Sam away from those folks. Why are you suddenly so interested?"

"Just doing some math in my head."

Chapter 27

Chase Pearson's office in Annapolis was far grander than Tess would have expected. His was an insignificant job, after all, an appointed position that would evaporate like the dew once the current governor was gone. The special secretary for children and youth. But how foolish of her, how naive. There were no insignificant jobs in the state capital. No small parts, no small actors.

And no small crimes.

"Miss Monaghan," Pearson said. She didn't even rate a flash of his bad teeth at this point in their relationship. Whatever his future plans, he had apparently decided he could get by without her vote. "I thought I had made it clear that I did not wish to hear from you again."

"You made it clear I'd be arrested if I tried to go to Penfield, so I came to see you here. That's okay. You can answer far more of my questions than Sal ever could."

Pearson leaned back in his chair. "Speak," he said, in a tone suitable for addressing a dog, or a trained seal. Seeing as Tess was neither, she roamed his office, inspecting the plaques that lined the wall, checking out Pearson's view. It wasn't very good, just some Annapolis rooftops, not even a sliver of the Chesapeake Bay.

"‘To Chase Pearson,'" she read from one of the largest mounted certificates. "‘In honor of his work for Maryland's children.' Now was this award for your current do-nothing job, or the one before, the do-nothing task force on young men and violence?"

"I don't consider saving the next generation a matter of insignificance."

"Neither do I, neither do I," Tess assured him. "But don't you think you accomplished more as a front-line social worker?"

"Beg pardon?"

"A social worker. That is how you started, isn't it? I had a friend pull your resume this morning from the Beacon-Light's files, and there it was. Eighteen whole months in the trenches. Very noble, in the Pearson tradition of community service, but your generation really couldn't afford to be so civic-minded, I gather. About five years ago, just before the mayor appointed you to that task force. What was it that you did for DSS, exactly?"