“We’re more certain of that now,” Ellie said. “CSU matched Myers’s prints to a latent they pulled from the victim’s shirt. We also located a cabdriver who can place Jake Myers outside the club with the victim just before closing time. That contradicts his statement in two ways: he said Chelsea left earlier, and he said he was never outside the club with her.”

“Good,” Donovan said, straightening his blue-striped tie. “We’re getting somewhere. And we’re going to have some leverage against Warden. I just got the crime lab reports from last night.”

“That was fast,” she said. In the bureaucratic world of NYPD, evidence related to Warden’s drug bust had to be processed by a separate-and typically slower-unit than the physical evidence in the Chelsea Hart murder case.

“It’s amazing what they can do when you tell them Simon Knight needs something yesterday. The drugs you took off the girl-”

“Ashlee Swain,” Ellie reminded him.

“Right. The drugs came back positive as crystal meth, with Jaime Rodriguez’s fingerprints on the baggie. We’ve also got Warden’s prints, plus Rodriguez’s, on the money you seized from Warden’s pocket. And the weight came in at precisely an eighth of an ounce.”

“Hot damn,” Rogan said. The prints corroborated Ellie’s version of what went down between Rodriguez, Warden, and the model. And thanks to the Rockefeller drug laws, an eight ball of meth could get Warden up to nine years.

“Warden’s lawyer is ready to deal,” Donovan said. “Her client went through drug court once already as a college sophomore after he got popped for DUI on Christmas break and the police found a small amount of cocaine in his impounded car. That, combined with the drug weight and his current participation in distribution, will keep him out of drug court and on the felony docket.”

Ellie smiled. After news like this, the preppy rich kid with the surfer haircut would not be so protective of his friend.

“Shoot,” Donovan said, checking his watch. “I better run if I’m going to talk to this lawyer before arraignment.”

“Who’s the lawyer?” Rogan asked.

“Her name’s Susan Parker. I expected one of the big gun criminal defense lawyers, but she’s an associate at one of those fringy finance firms. They’ve got a reputation for pushing the envelope-moving business offshore, hiding conflicts of interest, just about anything to avoid SEC oversight. I assume they represent Warden’s hedge fund. Parker’s not much older than Warden himself. She was probably sent over here to work something out. If it gets complicated, they’ll bring in a shark. But not to worry. We’re not going to let it get complicated.”

“Real quick, before we go: we drafted an affidavit based on Jake Myers’s statements last night and the cabdriver’s ID,” Ellie said, holding up the four-page document she’d hammered out at the precinct. It was accompanied by an application for an arrest warrant and a search warrant for Jake Myers’s apartment, car, and a DNA sample. “We figured it was enough for PC. Do you want us to hold off until you get Warden’s story, or go ahead and get it signed while we’re here?”

“May I?” Donovan asked. She handed him the document and watched as Donovan scanned the pages, nodding occasionally. “Nice work. You write better than half the trial lawyers in the office.”

“That’s not exactly high praise for your coworkers.” As Donovan handed the affidavit back to her, Ellie noticed Rogan eyeing her with a smirk. “So what were your thoughts on the timing?”

“Right. Go ahead and get the warrant signed. Better to pick Myers up now. You never know where a guy like that might run off to.”

“THAT WAS QUITE the mutual admiration society up there,” Rogan said as they jogged down the courthouse steps on Centre Street. It had required all of fifteen minutes to get the warrants reviewed and signed.

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about? I felt like I was standing in between Angelina and Billy Bob back in the old dirty days.”

“Please, because he said that stupid thing about my writing? He’s just a typical lawyer trying to get on our good side so he can screw us over down the road.”

“Excuse me, but I’ve been shined on by half the ADAs in the county, and that’s not what all that was about. I saw the way he was looking at you.”

“You are having far too much fun teasing me,” Ellie said.

“I’d say that from the looks of things, it was more like you were having fun teasing him. Crossing your legs. Getting his advice about the warrant. I think I even caught a hair twirl in there.”

“All right, that’s enough.” It was not a hair twirl. Maybe a flip, at most. Ellie did have to admit that she’d noticed Donovan looking at her.

She’d noticed other things as well during their brief introduction: Donovan’s height-he must have been about six-one-and solid build. Cool gray eyes and square jaw. A thin-lipped smile that was cute without being cocky. Sort of a John Kennedy Jr. look. No wedding band. That nice truffle smell.

That really was enough, she thought to herself. These loopy teenage daydreams were clearly the result of clinical levels of sleep deprivation. She felt a slight pang of guilt recalling one of the reasons for her sleeplessness-her late night with Peter Morse.

“Ready to pick up our boy Myers?” Rogan asked.

“I’ve been ready since the second he called Chelsea’s friend a bitch.”

THE SIGN THAT WELCOMED them was black marble with silver letters. Universal Capital Management.

It sounded serious. Large. Trustworthy. Established. In truth, it was a ten-month old, four-man shop occupying only half a floor of a midlevel office building on Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street.

The receptionist informed them they would need an appointment to see Mr. Myers, but Ellie and Rogan ignored her and found their way down a narrow hallway leading to four offices. The first was empty. A nameplate on the desk read Nicolas J. Warden.

At door number two stood a man with a familiar face.

“Detectives. I didn’t realize you’d be coming here.”

Jake Myers apparently left his New Wave wardrobe at home during business hours. In a conservative navy suit and red power tie, and without mass quantities of gel to mold his hair into a gravity-defying shape, he almost didn’t look like an ass.

Rogan grabbed Myers’s arm, pushed him against the hallway wall, and began patting down his suit. “We don’t usually give people a shout-out before arresting them for murder.” He read Myers his Miranda rights while placing him in handcuffs.

“You’re making a mistake,” Myers said. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

Ellie pulled Myers around to face her. “You’re the one who made a mistake. Last night, you were sure your boys would cover for you. Well, tomorrow Nick Warden will be selling short and trading swap futures in his office next door, looking for someone else to help him run the company while you spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“I thought cops were supposed to investigate. You won’t listen to anything I tell you.”

“Let’s take a look at what you’ve told us so far. You told us you didn’t leave the club with Chelsea Hart, do drugs with her, or have sexual contact with her.” She ticked off his lies on her fingers. “So, as far as we’re concerned, everything you’ve ever said to us is a lie.”

Ellie was new to homicide cases, but she had arrested enough suspects to be familiar with the typical responses to confrontation. Regret. Panic. Anger. Defiance. She also recognized the physical acts that tended to accompany these emotions. Regret and panic tended to trigger tears, while anger often brought violence. Defiance was usually accompanied by either an adamant and detailed story of innocence or an invocation of counsel. And sometimes spit. Spit paired well with anger, too. She hated it when the angry and the defiant spit.