"But I'm not."

"Right. But that doesn't matter."

She closed her eyes and for a breath her structure seemed to crumble. Then she straightened up, opened her eyes, lifted her jaw and flashed a high-octane smile. "I'm innocent," she said. "I've got nothing to be afraid of."

"Correct. Let's go get 'em. I'll see you out there."

They'd been standing a foot apart and now Catherine stepped forward. "Dismas, I just want to say that I know how hard this has been for you. I mean personally. I never meant…"

"It's not you," he said. "It's all right."

She moved closer and leaned her head against his chest, the weight of it against him. Carefully, delicately, he put his arms around her and held her lightly. It was the first time they'd embraced. Catherine brought her arms around his back and tightened her hold on him. Again, her composure broke.

He patted her back, gradually easing her away, kissing her chastely on the cheek. Without another word, he picked up his briefcase, went to the door and knocked for the guard, and was gone.

The courtroom was Department 21 on the third floor of the Hall of Justice. Hardy had been in it on many occasions by now, but never failed to be disappointed by its lack of grandeur. More than twenty years ago, the city had installed extra security for the trial of Dan White, who'd shot Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in their offices at City Hall. Now heavy doors and bulletproof glass separated the gallery from the well of the courtroom in Department 21. Except for these amenities, the room might have been a typical classroom in a marginally funded school district.

In front of the bar, Hardy sat at a plain blond library desk on the left-hand side of the nondescript, window-less, fluorescent-lit room. His counterpart with the prosecution-Rosen, with case inspector Dan Cuneo next to him-sat at an identical table about ten feet to his right. Beyond them was the varnished plywood jury box.

They'd finished jury selection yesterday, and now the box was filled with four men and eight women; with three African Americans, two Asians, two Hispanics, five Caucasians; one dentist, one high school teacher, three housewives, a city employee, a computer repairperson, two salesmen, three between jobs. Hardy had been living with the endless calculations of the crapshoot of the makeup of the eventual panel for nine working days. Now here they were and he'd done all he could. He even felt pretty good about some of the people; but he still wished he could start again. But it was always like this- something you just couldn't know or predict.

He'd entered the courtroom through the back door, coming up the hallway by the judge's chambers, to avoid the reporters and the general madness, and now at his table he ventured a half-turn to catch his wife's eye. Fran-nie was in the first row, the first seat by the center aisle, next to their friend, the "CityTalk" columnist Jeff Elliot. Frannie didn't often come to court with Hardy, but for his big trials she tried to be there for his opening and closing statements. He caught her eye and put his hand over his heart and patted it twice, the secret signal. She did the same.

Behind her and Elliot, it was bedlam.

Every one of the twelve rows, eight wooden, theater-style seats to a side, was completely filled, mostly with media people. Hardy also recognized not just a few people from his office who had come down to cheer him on, but several other attorneys from the building, as well as what appeared to be quite a sizable sampling of regular folks and trial junkies. And now, before the entrance of the judge, everyone was talking all at once.

On Hardy's side, Will Hanover sat with the other adult members of his extended family who would not be called as witnesses for the prosecution-Catherine's two sisters-in-law and their husbands. unbelievably, Hardy thought, given the testimony they'd supplied to Cuneo, Beth and Aaron, like Will, still considered themselves to be on Catherine's side. Despite their comments in police reports to the contrary, none of them actually seemed to believe that Catherine was guilty. Yes, she'd known where Paul kept his gun. Yes, she'd been worried about the inheritance. Yes, she'd repeated many times that somebody would have to kill Paul and Missy. Either they didn't believe in causality or they didn't understand the gravity of their statements, but nonetheless, by their very presence on Catherine's "side" of the gallery, they would be living and breathing testimony to the fact that they still cared about her-and in the great nebulous unknown that was the collective mind of the jury, this might not be a bad thing.

Cuneo, of course, was turned around at the prosecutor's table and sat jittering nonstop, talking to a couple of assistant DAs from upstairs in the front row, down for the show. But then suddenly the bailiff was standing up to the left of the judge's utilitarian desk. "All rise. Department Twenty-One of the Superior Court of the State of California is now in session. Her Honor Judge Marian Braun presiding. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers, be seated and come to order."

Without any fanfare, Braun was seated almost before the bailiff had concluded his introduction. She scowled out at the gallery, as though surprised at its size, then faced the clerk and nodded. The clerk nodded back, then looked over to the second bailiff, who was standing by the back door to the courtroom, on Hardy's right. They'd already called the case number and read the indictment for special circumstances double murder when they'd begun jury selection so long ago. So now, today, there was little of that earlier formality-the defendant merely needed to be in the courtroom so that she could face her accusers.

The back door opened and Catherine Hanover appeared to a slight electric buzz from the gallery. The loss of the fifteen pounds hadn't hurt her looks. Neither had the light makeup, the subtle lipstick, the tailored clothing. In the brassy fluorescence of the courtroom, she seemed to shine, and Hardy was not at all sure that this was a positive. Good looks could backfire. He glanced at the jury for reactions and suddenly wished there were at least eight men on it and four women, instead of the other way around. Or even twelve men, all of them older and self-made.

During jury selection, he'd convinced himself that the women he'd accepted were of a traditional bent, and hence would be deeply suspicious of Missy D'Amiens and her unknown and thus arguably colorful and potentially dangerous past. On the other hand, he suddenly realized-and Catherine's appearance today underscored this-that these same women might have a great deal of trouble identifying with this attractive woman whose husband's six-figure income wasn't enough to support her lifestyle. In the end, he'd gone along with impaneling all the women because women, at least the sort he hoped he had left on the jury, tended to believe that sexual harassment happened. But he shuddered inwardly now, suddenly afraid that he might have outright miscalculated.

He tore his eyes away from the jury and brought them back to his client. He stood and pulled out the chair next to him for her, glad to see that she had apparently found her husband and in-laws in the gallery and acknowledged them.

Then she was seated. Hardy whispered to her. "How are you doing?" "Fine."

The judge tapped her gavel to still the continuing buzz, then turned to the prosecution table. "Mr. Rosen, ready for the people?"

Rosen got out of his chair. "Yes, Your Honor."

"Mr. Hardy?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"All right, Mr. Rosen, you may begin."

Chris Rosen was a professional trial attorney with nine years of experience and a specialization in arson cases. He'd prosecuted three homicides and a dozen arsons in that time, winning four of them outright and getting lesser convictions with substantial prison time on the others. So he could say with absolute truth that he'd never lost a case, which in this most liberal city was an enviable, almost unheard of, record. Maybe Rosen hadn't always gotten a clear win, either, but Hardy knew the truth of the defense bias in San Francisco-indeed, it was one of the factors involved in this case for which he was most grateful-but this was cold comfort as he watched his young, good-looking opposite number rise with a quiet confidence and a friendly demeanor to match it.