“Watch it on the steps,” Mercer said, opening the door and steering my elbow. “There are a few icy patches.”

I didn’t say anything as we walked to my SUV. I was thinking that Mike was staying on behind to drink with Mercer because he didn’t want to deal with following me back into Manhattan-his usual style if we were in separate cars-and saying good-bye at my door.

“You okay, Alex?” Mercer asked. “You’re so quiet.”

“Yes, of course. I’m just tired,” I said, reaching up to kiss him. “Tell Vickee I’ll call her tomorrow. What an absolute joy to get to spend time with Logan.”

He opened the car door and I got in, letting the engine warm up before I pulled away from the curb.

The CD picked up where Smokey had left off when I arrived. “Ooh, baby, baby…” I wasn’t up for brokenhearted love songs at that moment, so I shut off the music for a quiet ride home.

I turned left at the end of the long street, retracing my route to the expressway through the dark, quiet neighborhood. I was driving slowly, concerned about the ice on the streets of the outer borough, always among the last to be plowed.

There was a right turn after a stop sign, and as I eased the heavy SUV around the corner I noticed a car approaching behind me.

I tried to pull over so that the driver, who seemed to be in more of a hurry than I was, could pass me, but there wasn’t room for anyone to get by on the one-way residential street, lined on both sides with parked cars.

I sped up and my car fishtailed on the icy road. I glanced in the rearview mirror and was grateful that the driver in back got the point. He-or she-had slowed considerably and seemed to have accepted my pace.

Another three or four blocks and I knew I would see the large green sign that marked the entrance to the highway. I took my time, looking in the mirror at every turn to see if the car was still there. I wasn’t really concerned because the route I was taking was the one to the main artery leading both into the city and out to Long Island. I’d expect other drivers to use it.

I crossed a large intersection and the driver stayed on the same path. The car was a larger SUV than mine, a light silver color-nothing like the minivan that had alarmed me at the shelter in the afternoon. But its windshield had the same kind of dark tint.

The street I was on narrowed and doglegged to the left, so I braked again going into the curve, careful to avoid the piles of slush bordering the pavement.

Suddenly, the driver behind stepped on the gas and plowed into me, ramming my SUV and aiming it at the large utility pole straight ahead.

I swung the steering wheel as hard as I could, sharply left, and the powerful machine responded like a small sports car. I veered into the driveway of the last large house on the block and leaned on the horn for a full minute as I came to a stop inches from the garage door.

The SUV that hit me sped off as my horn blared and lights went on in all the houses on the street.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The two uniformed cops who answered to the flurry of 911 calls in the still Douglaston neighborhood asked for my license and registration.

I apologized to the man whose driveway I’d entered in such a wild fashion, before I backed out and waited for the police. I’m not sure he believed my story about being followed and forced off the road, but he seemed to want me out of his hair so that he could go back to bed.

“Where were you coming from, Miss Cooper?”

I decided not to pull out my badge and tell them I was an assistant district attorney. I didn’t need to wind up in a tabloid gossip column or be the butt of any more of Mike’s jokes. Maybe I really was seeing too much of the bogeyman.

“A friend’s house,” I said. I gave them Mercer’s name and address.

“You have anything to drink?”

Officer Tarranta was talking to me as he eyeballed the damage to my car. His partner was sitting in the RMP, using the laptop now in each radio motor patrol car to see whether I had a criminal record or vehicular violations.

“Half a glass of wine about four hours ago. I’ll blow for you.”

“I tell you,” Tarranta said, “these TV shows are too much. They even got the lingo down. All of youse learn your cop talk on Law and Order, I guess. Most of the people I stop aren’t so willing to blow for me.”

“This was ice, I think. Not on the rocks, but on the street.”

“I seen you walk fine, your breath don’t smell, and you’re totally coherent, ma’am. I just have to ask about the liquor. It’s routine.” He squatted by my rear fender and jiggled it. The right side was badly dented and hanging off the end of the vehicle. “You may not be hammered, but your car took a hit. How’s your head?”

“I’m fine.”

“You want to go to the ER? Be checked out?” Tarranta asked.

“No. Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“You got to sign this for me, then,” he said.

If I told him I knew it was an RMA form-that I had refused medical attention-he might have figured I had something to do with law enforcement. “Sure. What is it?”

He explained the procedure and then told me to get in the car to stay warm. I watched as he walked down the street, in the direction from which I’d come.

When he got back to me, he was shaking his head. “I don’t understand it, ma’am. This roadway is clean as a whistle. Nothing to skid on, unless you were wide to the side of the main lane.”

“Maybe I was.” I smiled lamely at him.

“I put a call out for a speeding silver SUV. See if anything comes from that. You think it was intentional? Some guy follow you from the party?”

“No, Officer. It wasn’t a party. It was just four of us at the house, and no one followed me when I left the street,” I said. One of the city’s best detectives had packed me into my car and waited as I drove away.

“Did you see him in the rearview mirror?” Tarranta asked. His partner approached and gave a thumbs-up, confirming that I had no record.

“I saw the car about a block after I pulled out from my friend’s house. I think I was just going too slow for the guy.”

I could tell Mercer about it tomorrow, but no need making a big deal out of it with these officers.

“Anything come back on the radio about the silver SUV?” Tarranta asked his partner.

“Nothing yet.”

“I’ll give you this number, Miss Cooper. You can call in for the police report tomorrow, for your insurance company.”

“But it’s okay for me to drive it, don’t you think?”

The two cops looked at each other. Tarranta got down on his knees and tugged on the fender, then stuck his head beneath the rear of the SUV, probably to see how firmly it was still attached.

He stood up and talked to the younger, thinner cop. “Give it a feel, will you? I don’t want to send this lady out on the highway and have the damn thing dragging behind her.”

Officer Richards didn’t seem too happy to have to get down on the pavement to examine the underside of my car. He knelt and then flattened out on his back. His head disappeared from sight as he tried to jam the loose fender back up in place.

“I’m so sorry to have caused all this trouble. Please get up. I’ll be fine.”

“Hey, Anthony,” Richards called up to his partner. “It’s not the bent metal that I’m worried about.”

He was sliding out and sitting up, holding a black object in his hand. “The problem is, she’s been tagged.”

I didn’t have to rely on television cop shows to learn the latest lingo. I knew exactly what that little object was. The young cop was telling Officer Tarranta that a Global Positioning System monitor had been concealed in the undercarriage of my SUV.

“I know what that means too,” I said to the startled cops. “This wasn’t an accident, guys. Someone’s been using a GPS to chase me around all day and night.”