Not that there’d been much to smile about over the past six or seven months, but something in the couple’s body language toward each other spoke of a renewed connection, an ease, a true rapport. No longer rich, successful husband and subservient, stay-at-home wife, but true partners now. A lot to grab from a first impression, but Hardy decided to believe it was true.

The occasion-final payment for his legal services-could have been handled by a check in the mail, but they’d wanted to come down and deliver it in person, and he was grateful for the opportunity to see them again, in this setting, with their ordeal behind them. So he offered coffee and condolences about Harlen, both of which they accepted, and they made small talk, until they were all settled in the formal seating area closest to Hardy’s desk.

At which time Joel reached into his inside pocket and proffered an envelope embossed with his corporation’s logo.

“Feel free to open it now, if you’d like,” Maya said.

“That’s all right.” Hardy broke a small grin. “I trust it’s pretty close.”

“Maybe not.” Maya, with an impish smile of her own, made it sound like a dare.

So Hardy shrugged, opened the flap, pulled out the check, and looked up with some surprise. “This is, um… I don’t remember the last time I got tongue-tied.”

“It’s a bonus,” Joel said.

Maya was outright beaming now. “We thought Dylan’s salary for a year would have a nice symmetry.”

“It’s got a lot more than symmetry,” Hardy said. “Are you sure this is… I’m afraid I’m just a little overwhelmed. This is more than extremely generous.”

Maya nodded. “You saved my life, Dismas. In many ways.” She reached over and put a hand on her husband’s knee. “I told him.”

“Good for you,” Hardy said. And turning to Joel, “And I bet you weren’t even tempted to leave her.”

He put his hand over hers. “Not even close. I never would. No matter what. I don’t know if she ever really believed that before. But we all make mistakes, huh? Do things we’re ashamed of, and worse than that.”

“I know it’s happened to me,” Hardy said. “Though if you’d keep that in this room, I’d appreciate it. My associates would be shocked and dismayed.”

“In any event,” Maya said, “I… we just wanted to thank you so much. It has been such a burden for so long and now I don’t have it anymore. I feel like a different person.”

Joel hadn’t let go of her hand. “The same person, only happier. And better.”

She looked contentedly across at him. “Arrête un peu.” In French. Stop a little. But not too much. Then, back at Hardy, with a sigh. “Anyway… if you don’t mind, I’ve got one last little thing that you could explain that I wanted to understand, and just really don’t.”

“If I can, I will.”

She let out a small breath. “Why me?”

“Why you what?”

“I mean, with Craig Chiurco. How did he pick me to frame? I never met him, I never even had heard of him, and suddenly he picks me out of nowhere and tries to ruin my life. I just don’t understand what happened. How that happened.”

Hardy picked up his coffee and took a sip. He knew that it was an excellent question, and that she deserved an answer. But there was no certain answer. Craig was dead, and no one would ever really know for sure. Hardy just hoped that the one he had-and he’d given it a lot of thought-was good enough for her.

“Well,” he began, “here’s my best guess. Dylan was in the blackmail business, and he was a greedy man. For a long time he was happy stringing you along, selling his dope, keeping up on his customer list. But remember, he also knew that Craig had killed the Gomez boy. Now, the fact that he’d done it in connection with a robbery they were both involved in made it a little squirrelly, since technically, legally, they’d both be guilty of that murder, whoever it was that pulled the trigger.

“But he liked pushing the limits, Dylan did. And what I think happened is that they were all together at BBW that day a few weeks before he got killed, and Dylan brought it up again. And here’s Craig going for his private eye license, straight all these years, thinking his past is all behind him, and then Dylan ups the stakes. Somehow. Tells him what he’s been doing with you, maybe without any of the specific details, but enough to make Craig know that you’ve got every reason to want Dylan removed too.

“So he decides to kill Dylan, and all he needs is to have you show up soon after.”

“So he called me? That was him?”

“I don’t know for sure. But Dylan had a Brooklyn accent, which isn’t so hard to mimic. Craig calls you late at night and makes it short and sweet, saying it’s an emergency he can’t talk about now… well, you came running. He knew what time Dylan got to the alley every day. He knew he’d have your gun with him. In any event, it all worked. If you want my opinion, you’re damn lucky he didn’t wait around to kill you too.”

“I thought of that. I’m kind of surprised he didn’t.”

Hardy shook his head. “Two dead people, and the police still left looking for who killed them? Too much to orchestrate. He wanted to keep it simple.”

“So what about Levon?”

“Levon would have remembered the conversation at BBW, their fight that Eugenio Ruiz witnessed, remember? So he goes to Levon’s, pulls his gun, has Levon call you on his cell phone and invite you over, walks behind him and… well, you know the rest.”

“So he didn’t know me at all, and just did that?”

“That’s what I think,” Hardy said.

“That’s about what I told her too,” Joel added. “She just said that sounded like the essence of evil. She doesn’t want to believe that people could really be that bad, in their souls.”

“I mean,” she said, “we all make mistakes, sure. Even terrible ones. But this wasn’t a simple mistake. This was a conscious decision to just destroy somebody he didn’t know at all.”

Hardy nodded. “That’s right.”

“I don’t want to believe that people can actually be like that,” she said.

“Not all of them. And thankfully, maybe not too many. But definitely some,” Hardy said. “Definitely some.”

Acknowledgments

It is almost impossible for me to imagine that this is my twentieth book! And so my first acknowledgment is to all of you, my readers, who have been so enthusiastic and supportive of my work over all these years. I never forget that I owe my success-never anticipated to this degree, and tremendously appreciated-to those of you who buy these books, pass them to your friends and relatives, discuss them at work and at home, take them to your hearts. Having such a dedicated core of readers is one of the great thrills of a writer’s life, and I am humbly grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This book began in an e-mail discussion with one of my correspondents, Dr. Jack Crary, who had been intrigued by some of the medical issues in some of my earlier books-particularly the effect of traumatic injury on family members of those who’d suffered it. That correspondence led me to Abe Glitsky’s reaction to his son’s accident, and got me off and running in Chapter One. Thanks, Jack.

As the story got under way, I encountered, as usual, a great dearth in my knowledge about what I was hoping to write about. For insights into business perspectives that were foreign to me, I’d like to thank my neighbors (and fellow Piscators) Tim Lien and Tim Cronan. These gentlemen connected me to a U.S. attorney in San Diego, Bruce Smith, who was a forthcoming and generous source on the uses of forfeiture in connection with the drug trade. After the first draft was finished, I turned to a very talented writer and author, John Poswall, and a couple of other colleagues of his who prefer to remain anonymous, for further insight into government prosecutions and grand jury proceedings.