Matt drank one bottle entirely by himself. After several toasts, he said, “There’s something I want to say to Nina.”

“Sounds serious,” Andrea said, filling her glass.

“It is,” he said. “Nina, now I don’t think it’s a secret I’ve never liked what you do. I’ve never hidden my opinion of your chosen profession. You work too much. You drive yourself too hard for a bunch of troublemakers who could never be grateful enough, in my opinion.”

“Oh, now, Matt,” Nina said.

He put up a hand to stop her. “I never thought it was worth it. I’ve said it before. That shouldn’t surprise you. Well,” he said, “I’m going to admit something. Today proved I was wrong. Apparently, what you do has some merit after all.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Andrea laughed. “Now and then, three and a half million bucks worth of merit!”

“That’s right,” Matt said. “And I hope you know how much you deserve it, too, Nina.”

“And it couldn’t happen to a nicer specialist in horrible cases,” Andrea said, patting Nina’s hand.

“Nina, has it sunk in yet?” Matt asked, looking at her. “From now on, you can pretty much buy anything you want.”

“A Roche Bobois couch,” Andrea said. “Duette blinds for the front windows. Hey, Nina, you can finally break down and buy yourself a decent pair of jeans. I’ve been meaning to tell you that the ones you’ve been wearing have a couple of holes under the back pocket.”

“A yacht,” said Matt.

“Really? Could she buy a yacht?” Andrea asked.

“Yes, she could,” Matt said. “I think. How much is a yacht anyway?”

“I have no idea,” Andrea said.

“To answer your original question, Matt,” Nina said. “No. It hasn’t sunk in.”

“Okay, here it comes,” Andrea said. “Here’s the question every celebrity in mourning, every landslide victim, and every lottery winner must answer at some point to satisfy the curious onlookers.”

“What question is that, Andrea?” asked Nina.

“How does it feel?”

Nina lay back on the lounge chair and pulled her coat tightly around her, staring up at the sky. “It feels like one of those stars up there just fell into my backyard.”

The vote had been nine to three, the minimum. Patti Zobel made it clear afterward, as she spoke to the press in the hall, that she had been the ninth vote favoring Lindy. Courtney Poole said it had been terribly close. Right before Cliff’s collapse, he had just about persuaded several of the other jurors to change their minds and vote for Mike, but then the judge had said to start fresh. When they returned to their original positions, and added in Patti’s emphatic arguments in favor of Lindy, Mike’s support had evaporated.

For two days, Nina enjoyed her brush with fame. Interviewed by the major networks, public television, radio and even on a website Bob helped her organize, she didn’t have any more time to deal with her own shock.

The attention often had a slightly hostile quality to it and generally varied according to gender. Men expressed disbelief and outrage at Lindy’s success. Women called the case cataclysmic and a vindication.

Nina disliked watching the issues get melted down by the media into a gender war. She said over and over in the interviews that the truth lay somewhere in the middle. She reminded everyone that the Markov case was unique in its details because of Lindy’s participation in the business. Most palimony cases had more to do with a long-term emotional connection and involved a request for support or rehabilitation. She didn’t think it would advance the cause of female financial equity between couples who lived together. Several other jurors, also interviewed, seconded her guess, saying that the issue was always Lindy’s work.

The jury had agreed that the separate property agreement was not a valid contract, that Lindy had signed the agreement with an understanding that there was a promise of marriage attached. They also agreed that some form of oral contract existed between the parties that promised Lindy not half of the company, but a share, which they had struggled to quantify, settling on one-third.

Susan Lim said on local television, “Anybody can come up with a good idea. Anybody can get it built. What really counts in business is marketing. If nobody buys, you make no money. Ms. Markov struck me as an intelligent person who definitely played a large part in their success. Who came up with their biggest product? She did. That was our reasoning, based on careful and objective consideration of the evidence.”

The jury had heard the evidence, and they had reached a decision for Lindy. It was the American jury system at its best.

And it was over.

BOOK FIVE. VACATIONS

29

Paul flew back to Sacramento from Washington on Friday. He heard the news about Nina’s verdict from a television set while biting down on a thick cheeseburger at Sam’s in Placerville. Sam’s was closing after thirty years and he was sure going to miss the old barn with the sawdust on the floors, and the hokey nostalgic decor.

As Nina wasn’t taking his phone calls, he was going to see her personally. He had hoped to make it up there for the verdict, as she was usually at her most accessible at the moment the pressure let up, but this would have to do.

He was still angry at the way she had treated him, but he knew the stunt he had pulled had merited a slap on the wrist. However, that should not have included this telephone silence or such a prolonged lack of contact.

Still, he was not surprised by her overreaction. Big trials always brought with them a loss of control. Lawyers belted each other, clients turned to drink, witnesses left town, strong judges turned into wimps. He himself had possibly overreacted slightly to Riesner. What was the big deal? He had barely hurt the guy.

He didn’t give a shit if he never worked for her again. He wanted something else from this warm female encased like Sleeping Beauty under cold glass. He wanted to break the glass and grab her, shake her back to life. But he couldn’t do that. She would never forgive him for doing that. She had put up that glass to protect herself in the working world, and that was a place she had always liked too much to give up.

Until now. Now she had won her big case, the big case. She couldn’t expect another with stakes like this one in her lifetime, could she? Like Sam’s in Placerville, a phase in Nina’s life seemed to be ending.

Barring any unforeseeable circumstances, Nina was now a millionaire. Markov still had thirty days to appeal. He would probably settle instead, and even if he did appeal, the lawyers would receive their due sooner or later.

She had been evasive with him about the details, but Paul knew a canny lady like Nina would not pass the opportunity up to make a killing on a case like this one. She had struggled along for almost a year while working the Markov case. She was on top. She had nothing more to prove.

She could even quit working.

She could move to Carmel and live with him, break open her glass coffin on her own.

A brilliant future stretched out before her. He finished his meal, quaffed a beer, and stopped to plunk a quarter into Madame Zelda’s slot for what would be the last time.

The impassive, scarfed wooden gypsy shifted in her glass case, unseating a layer of dust. A ruby light lit up behind her. Her finger roved among the yellow cards laid out in front of her. The finger stopped. A card fell into the slot.

The serpent crawls and does his harm