“And I prefer you on the set of bad soap operas where you can’t annoy me,” she returned. “Yet we don’t always get what we want, do we?” She righted and put down her pen. “Phillips,” she called, spotting him across the room. “What do you have on the perps?”

              The officer hustled over. “Bunch of Manhattan bigwigs. Investment bankers, businessmen, politicians. No criminal records. Uniformly swimming in money. Already making plenty of noise about their phone call and their lawyers. Bunch of babies. They actually expected me to make a Starbucks run this morning, as if I was their concierge.”

              As if on cue, an army of sharp-suited men burst through the elevator doors, leather briefcases in hand. “Oh, God,” Kim exhaled. “We’re going to have a hell of a time shaking anything out of them now. Did you manage to get them talking last night?”

              “They refused to speak,” Jacob put in. “We tried to lean on them, but they were too savvy. Wanted their lawyers immediately. Lost cause.”

              Kim took a deep breath. “I wish they’d just tried to kill me last night and been done with it. All right, bring the first one into interview room four and let’s get started.” Alex made a move to follow her. “No, Kane. You’re going behind the glass.”

              “What! Detective, please. I can provide psychological insight. Remember what we talked about last night?”

              “Exactly. You start talking about theories with evil twins, and these lawyers are going to cut you, and me, a new one.”

              “I’ll be quiet as a church mouse. I promise. And I won’t call you Officer Ginger all day and I’ll get my own ride home. Please pretty please please…”

              “OK! OK, all right. Just zip it, Kane, or I swear I’ll have you out on the street scouting infomercial auditions in two seconds flat.”

              The red-faced, portly player was already seated in the interview room with his lawyer.

              “This is an insult,” the lawyer began. “Mr. Grimes was engaged in a perfectly legal game of cards. And you haul him up here in the middle of the night on an unconnected murder charge? Preposterous.”

              “Your client was engaging in a poker ring that has known ties to Virginia Winters,” Kim said, settling down in a chair opposite. “So how is he going to explain that?”

              “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This was Mr. Grimes’ first game with this group. My client cannot be implicated in whatever accusations you may be bringing against his fellow players.”

              Kim sighed. She’d been expecting this run-around. “We already have a subpoena for your client’s phone and email records, counsel, so save your breath. In the meantime, I would like to know why Mr. Grimes decided to attend a poker game in which a single female was invited to play with a group of well-connected men.”

              “It’s not a crime to enjoy the company of a young woman, Detective,” the lawyer shot back. “Even if she happens to be a member of New York’s Finest.”

              Kim leaned over the table. “And what about sticking a blade in the back of said young woman? Is that a crime?”

              The client paled noticeably, though his eyes never left the table. Alex, who was watching him closely from the back of the room, leapt on this reaction.

              “Or watching another man stick in that blade? What about that?”

              Grimes’ eyes shot up from the table and rested tremulously on Alex’s face. He stared at him, unblinking, for several moments, before dropping his eyes again and resuming his formerly inscrutable expression.

              Kim directed a thunderous look in Alex’s direction but quickly picked up his line of questioning. “I’m sure if such a witness corroborated such a thing, then we could find ways to exempt him from prosecution. Not to mention, give him the satisfaction of putting away the real killer.”

              The lawyer shook his head gravely. “While I’m happy to listen to your fairy tales all day, my client has better things to do. Excuse me, Detective, but I think we’ve heard enough for now.”

              The other players were brought into the interview room, with exactly the same net result despite Kim’s best efforts. Defeated, she headed to the observation room, where Jacob and Craig were sitting.

              “Maybe I should have gone into the game in a pantsuit, after all, put them under thumb screws, and just gotten the truth then and there,” Kim said irritably, flopping into a chair. “What a waste. Those sharks are going to spring our perps loose in no time, and we’ll be back to square one. Where are we on the subpoenas, Phillips?”

              “We have approval, and a team is digging through the records as we speak. The perps all insist we’ll find nothing, since the game was set up in person. They have no idea who invited you, or so they say. The common suggestion is that someone must have overhead them setting up the game and decided to play a practical joke.”

              Kim shook her head slowly. “That sounds even more improbable than one of Kane’s plotlines. They’re clearly covering something up, though I don’t have a shred of evidence to prove it. Not that they need to know that.”

              “It’s strange that they all have the same story. Almost as if they’d decided on it in advance,” put in Jacob.

              “A backup plan in case they got caught. These jokers may be slick in business, but they’re hardly criminal masterminds. Someone else has to be behind this – to set up the game, the parameters, and get the story straight in case it all went south.” said Kim.

              Craig and Jacob both looked at her, dumbfounded. “Pardon me, Detective, but you think someone put them up to this?” Phillips said.

              Kim and Alex exchanged looks. “I can’t prove anything yet, but when I was in that room I had a strong feeling that these men were playing somebody else’s game – poker and otherwise.”

              Jacob was staring at Alex intently. “This doesn’t sound like you, Detective. I can only presume something this illogical must have originated from the only person in this room who didn’t graduate from the police academy.”

              Alex pretended to look hurt. “Still mad about the tea, Detective?”

              Kim sat up straight, crossing her legs. “Look, it’s just a hunch, Newport. After all, if those subpoenas turn up nothing, our intuition will be all we have to go on.”

              “Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to stick to the facts,” Jacob muttered.

              Craig looked down at his smartphone. “Well, looks like that’s going to be hard. Scanning the perps’ phone and email records turned up zero. Usual calls to escort services and Chinese take-out joints and emails to secret girlfriends. Good reading, apparently, but nothing that will help us solve our case.”

              “And what about the email to Doctor Sampson? Did you manage to trace the source?” Jacob said hotly.

              Phillips shook his head slowly. “No, Detective. The thing is encrypted like I’ve never seen.”

              “Tell me Officer, do any of our perps work in IT or have a known affiliation for tech?” said Kim.

              “Truthfully, I think most of them had difficulty typing those emails to their lovers, Detective.”

              Kim eyed Jacob meaningfully. “So who sent the email, then?”

              Jacob took a deep breath. Despite his passion for detective work, at that moment he would have rather been anywhere else – most likely fencing or tackling his latest supercomputer project. Not butting heads with two conspiracy theorists. “I hate to say it, but perhaps we have the wrong group.”

              Kim’s green eyes narrowed. “Now who’s dreaming?” The two detectives stared each other down for a moment. The tension in the room was palpable.