"Was she a client, too?"

"Tanjy doesn't have any money. Her dad was a minister, and her mom stayed at home. She got a little cash after they died, but that was all going to tuition. Tanjy never has much in her wallet, but when you look like she does, it doesn't matter. Guys will buy you anything you want."

"How long did you date?"

"About five or six months. We split up over the summer. That was a couple of months before her rape story made the news."

"Why'd you break it off? Did she get too expensive?"

Brandt looked surprised. "Me break it off? No way. She dumped me. I was having the best sex of my life, Lieutenant. Like I said, if she called me today, I'd be back over there this afternoon."

"Okay, so why did she dump you?" Stride asked.

"At the time, she said it was because I didn't want to get married."

"Why not? I thought you were hooked on the girl."

"I was, but not in a forever, roses, kids, minivan kind of way. I was happy to stay with her as long as she was greasing my pole. But marriage? No thanks. I didn't want to wake up and find her taking a cleaver to my privates someday."

"Tanjy was violent?"

"Haven't you been listening, Lieutenant? This girl was all about violence. Sex to her was violence. That was the only way she could enjoy it. This girl had bats in her belfry. I wasn't planning to be around if Satan suddenly told her to start slicing up her husband."

"You said you thought at the time that she dumped you because you didn't want to get married," Stride told Brandt. "Was there some other reason?"

Brandt nodded. "Oh, yeah. I'd never been dumped before, and it was sort of a blow to my ego, know what I mean? Girls don't usually blow me off for another guy."

"Tanjy was seeing someone else?"

"Yeah. She started having conflicts on date nights. Sonia told me Tanjy would go out for long lunches. Long like two hours. So I figured she'd found a sugar daddy. Somebody richer than me."

"Did you ask her who it was?"

"No. I didn't want to find out she tossed me over for someone fat, balding, and sixty, know what I mean? I bought the whole you-won't-marry-me line, even though it was bogus."

"You're sure it was bogus?" Stride asked.

"Well, no one put a ring on her finger, did they? Besides, the way she was sneaking around had to mean one thing. Whoever she was seeing, he was already married."

Like Eric, Stride thought.

After Stride left, Mitchell Brandt watched the detective from behind his coffee cup as he climbed into an old Ford Bronco in the parking lot. Brandt had been around cops before, and he knew the games they played. They talked with you about one thing when they really wanted something else. They baited you into saying something stupid. Sometimes, if you caught them stealing a glance when they thought you weren't looking, you could see the truth in their eyes.

Stride didn't look back as he drove away.

So maybe this really was all about Tanjy and nothing else. Brandt just didn't like the coincidence of the police tracking him down at this particular moment. Not when he was waiting for the next phone call. Not when his whole life was on the line.

Brandt slid out his black RAZR and dialed a number.

A woman answered. "This is Kathy."

"Hey there, alpha girl," Brandt said.

He pictured Kathy Lassiter, cool and hard in spiked heels, cutting off balls in the boardroom, hiding her bad girl ways behind a Brooks Brothers suit. She was a bitch, but he liked that. He enjoyed their battle for control.

"Well, hey yourself," she replied, her voice turning smoky. He imagined her red lips folding into a half-smile and her nipples puckering into pink nubs.

"Are you looking forward to next week?" he asked.

"You know I am. Are you going to be first?"

"Maybe I'll make you wait, so I can watch."

"I like that."

He grinned.

"Listen, about Infloron-" he began.

"Not on the phone."

"Yeah, I know. Understood. Sorry. I was just wondering if anyone has been nosing around. Asking you questions."

The silence drew out, but Brandt could hear the measured sound of her breathing.

"Of course not. Why?"

"I'm just making sure we're safe."

"Has someone talked to you?" The erotic undercurrent in her voice was gone. She was a corporate lawyer again, as sharp as a knife edge.

He hesitated. "No."

"Then stay cool."

"Look, if someone were to start following the paper trail, they'd wind up with me, not you."

Her voice was frozen. "So?"

"So I don't like that."

"I guess you'll have to trust me," she said.

"Yeah, right."

"I'll see you next week. You can get out your frustrations then. In the meantime, don't be stupid. Okay?"

"Sure."

Brandt hung up.

He tried to decide if Kathy Lassiter was lying to him. They used each other in and out of bed, but Brandt didn't trust Kathy. Not one little bit. He couldn't afford to trust anyone now. That was how it was when you were on the hook to a blackmailer.

12

An elderly Mexican housekeeper led Abel Teitscher to the solarium at the rear of Dan Erickson's London Road estate. A silver urn with coffee waited for him, along with a warm plate of cheese Danish and croissants. Abel awkwardly filled a china cup and blew on the coffee to cool it. He ate a piece of Danish quickly without using a plate and wiped his sticky fingers on a small paper napkin, then crumpled the napkin and shoved it in his pocket. He felt foolish, trying to balance the cup between his thumb and index finger, and feeling it quiver in his hand as if he was about to drop it and cause an embarrassing mess on the white ceramic tile.

Abel could feel the chill of the floor through the bottoms of his faded leather shoes. A wall of glass, divided into geometric patterns, looked out on a broad stretch of snow-covered lawn leading down to the lake. The mansions along the coastal road were expensive and old-school, set well back from the street behind iron gates, on large open lots that did nothing except ring up dollars on a property tax bill. Abel figured that the ground itself, just the dirt, was worth many times more than his entire house. Lauren's money, not Dan's.

He noticed a reflection in the diamond-shaped windows and turned to see Dan step down into the solarium from the main house. The county attorney had summoned Abel for an update on the investigation of Eric Sorenson's murder.

"Shit, it's like an icebox out here," Dan said. "You okay on coffee, Abel? Need a warmer-upper?"

"I'm okay."

Dan poured a cup. He was dressed in a navy blue silk robe over white pajamas, with black plush slippers on his feet. Abel could see an inch or two of bare ankles. Dan's blond hair, which was normally plastered in place with half a can of hair spray, was mussed and spiky. He hadn't shaved, and there was a yellow growth of stubble across the lower half of his face.

"Sorry I'm late," Dan said. "I was on the phone until two this morning about the new job. I can't wait to move to Washington. Nothing wrong with Duluth, but I was born in Chicago, and it'll be nice to be back in a real city again. Where Chinese food doesn't mean the lunch buffet at Potsticker Palace."

Abel grunted. He ordered takeout every Monday from the Potsticker Palace and thought it was damn good.

Dan put a croissant and two cheese Danish on a plate. "Not much for small talk, are you? That's why some people think you're a prick, Abel. Think about that. You're looking even skinnier than when I last saw you. You don't have cancer or something, do you?"

Abel felt his face growing hot. "I run, okay? Everyone else in this town piles on lard to hibernate for the winter, and meanwhile, my cholesterol is one hundred and seventy-one without taking any goddamn Lipitor."