He didn't want to go because he thought he should keep watch, but hey, I knew how to entice him. I regret that now, of course. But I did it. So we headed into the woods, just the two of us. Alone. The woods are huge. If you make a wrong turn, you can get lost in there forever. I had heard tales of children going out there and never coming back. Some say they still wander around, living like animals. Some say they died or worse. Well, you know how it is with campfire stories.

I used to laugh at stories like that. I never got scared of them.

Now I shudder at the thought.

We kept walking. I knew the way. P was holding my hand.

The woods were so dark. You can't see more than ten feet in front of you. We heard a rustling noise and realized that’s someone was in the woods. I froze, but I remember P smiling in the dark and shaking his head in a funny way. You see, the only reason campers met up in the woods was, well, it was a coed camp. There was a boys' side and a girls' side and this finger of the woods stood between them. You figure it out.

P sighed. "We better check it out," he said. Or something like that. I don't remember his exact words.

But I didn't want to. I wanted to be alone with him.

My flashlight was out of batteries. I can still remember how fast my heart was beating as we stepped into the trees. There I was in the dark, holding hands with the guy I loved. He would touch me and I would just melt. You know that feeling? When you can't stand to be away from a guy for even five minutes. When you put everything in context of him. You do something, anything really, and you wonder, "What would he think about that?" It is a crazy feeling. It is wonderful but it also hurts. You are so vulnerable and raw that it's scary.

"Shh,"he whispers. "Just stop."

We do. We stop.

P pulls me behind a tree. He cups my face in both of his hands.

He has big hands and I love the way that feels. He tilts my face up and then he kisses me. I feel it everywhere, a fluttering that begins in the center of my heart and then spreads. He takes his hand away from my face. He puts it on my rib cage, right next to my breast. I start to anticipate. I groan out loud.

We kept kissing. It was so passionate. We couldn't get close enough to each other. Every part of me felt on fire. He moved his hand under my shirt. I won't say more about that. I forgot about the rustling in the woods. But now I know. We should have contacted someone. We should have stopped them from going deeper in the woods. But we didn't. We made love instead.

I was so lost in us, in what we were doing, that at first I didn't even hear the screams. I don't think P did either.

But the screams kept coming and you know how people describe near-death experiences? That was what it was like, but kinda in reverse. It was like we were both headed for some wonderful light and the screams were like a rope that was trying to pull us back, even though we didn't want to go back.

He stopped kissing me. And here is the terrible thing.

He never kissed me again.

Lucy turned the page, but there were no more. She snapped her head up. "Where's the rest?"

"That's it. You said to send it in parts, remember? That's all there is."

She looked at the pages again.

"You okay, Luce?"

"You're good with computers, aren't you, Lonnie?"

He arched the eyebrow again. "I'm better with da ladies."

"Do I look like I'm in the mood?"

"Okay, okay, yeah, I'm good with computers. Why?"

"I need to find out who wrote this."

"But-"

"I need," she repeated, "to find out who wrote this."

He met her eye. He studied her face for a second. She knew what he wanted to say. It betrayed everything that they were about. They had read horrible stories in here, one this year about father-daughter incest even, and they had never tried to track the person down.

Lonnie said, "Do you want to tell me what this is about?"

"No."

"But you want me to break all the confidences we've ever set up here?" "Yes." "That bad?" She just looked at him. "Ah, what the hell," Lonnie said. "I'll see what I can do."

Chapter 3

'Tm TELLING YOU," I SAID YET AGAIN. "It's GlL PEREZ."

"The guy who died with your sister twenty years ago."

"Obviously," I said, "he didn’t die."

I don't think they believed me.

"Maybe it's his brother," York tried.

"With my sister's ring?"

Dillon added, "That ring isn't unusual. Twenty years ago they were all the rage. I think my sister had the same one. Got it for her sweet sixteen, I think. Was your sisters engraved?"

No.

"So we don't know for sure."

We talked for a while, but there was not much to add. I really didn't know anything. They would be in touch, they said. They'd find Gil Perez's family, see if they could make a positive ID. I didn't know what to do. I felt lost and numb and confused.

My Blackberry and cell phone were going nuts. I was late now for an appointment with the defense team in the biggest case of my career.

Two wealthy collegiate tennis players from the ritzy suburb of Short Hills stood accused of raping a sixteen-year-old African-American girl from Irvington named, and no, her name didn't help, Chamique Johnson. The trial had already started, had hit a delay, and now I hoped to cut a jail-time deal before we had to start up again.

The cops gave me a lift to my office in Newark. I knew that opposing counsel would think my tardiness was a ploy, but there wasn't much to be done about that. When I entered my office, the two lead defense lawyers were already seated.

One, Mort Pubin, stood and started bellowing. "You son of a bitch! Do you know what time it is? Do you?"

"Mort, did you lose weight?"

"Don't start that crap with me."

"Wait, no, that's not it. You're taller, right? You grew. Just like a real boy." "Up yours, Cope. We've been sitting here for an hour!" The other lawyer, Flair Hickory, just sat there, legs crossed, not a care in the world. Flair was the one I paid attention to. Mort was loud and obnoxious and showy. Flair was the defense attorney I feared like no other. He was not what anyone expected. In the first place, Flair – he swore it was his real name but I had my doubts, was gay. Okay, that wasn't a big deal. Plenty of attorneys are gay, but Flair was gay gay, like the love child of Liberace and Liza Minnelli, who'd been brought up on nothing but Streisand and show tunes.

Flair did not tone it down for the courtroom, he intentionally ratcheted it up.

He let Mort rant another minute or two. Flair flexed his fingers and studied his manicure. He seemed pleased by it. Then he raised his hand and silenced Mort with a fluttery wave.

"Enough," Flair said. He wore a purple suit. Or maybe it was eggplant or periwinkle, some such hue. I'm not good with colors. The shirt was the same color The Wood s 31 as the suit. So was the solid tie. So was the pocket hanky. So were-good Lord-the shoes. Flair noticed me noticing the clothes.

"You like it?" Flair asked me.

"Barney joins the Village People," I said.

Flair frowned at me.

"What?"

"Barney, the Village People," he said, pursing his lips. "Could you possibly come up with two more dated, overused pop references?" "I was going to say the purple Teletubby, but I couldn't remember his name."

"Tinky Winky. And that's still dated." He crossed his arms and sighed. "So now that we are all together in this clearly hetero-decorated office, can we just let our clients walk and be done with this?"

I met his eye. "They did it, Flair.''

He wouldn't deny it. "Are you really going to put that deranged stripper-cum-prostitute on the stand?" I was going to defend her, but he already knew the facts. "I am." Flair tried not to smile. "I will," he said, "destroy her." I said nothing. He would. I knew that. And that was the thing about this act. He could slice and dice and still make you like him. I'd seen him do it before. You'd think at least some of the jury would consist of homophobes and that they'd hate or fear him. But that wasn't how it worked with Flair. The female jurists wanted to go shopping with him and tell him about their husbands' inadequacies. The men found him so nonthreatening that they thought there was no way he could pull anything over on them.