What was going on? Was what she was doing right or wrong? Was Reheema guilty or not? Could Vicki help Mrs. Bristow at all? She turned, puzzling, from the bulletin board and left the bedroom. She got halfway down the stairs, and the sight in the first-floor bedroom told her that she didn't have the right answers.

In fact, she didn't even have the right questions.

FOURTEEN

Arissa Bristow was gone. The mattress in the makeshift bedroom lay empty. And Vicki's purse lay on the floor, its contents strewn onto the filthy rug.

Damn! How could she have been so stupid? She hurried to her purse and kneeled on the rug. Her mascara, eyeliner, a lipstick, her thick black Filofax, her BlackBerry, and, happily, her car keys, had been dumped in a pile. Of course, her wallet was gone and so was her cell phone.

Vicki sat back on her haunches, angry at herself. She had set her purse down when she thought Mrs. Bristow had stopped breathing and had forgotten about it when she went to the kitchen. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she had fifty bucks in her wallet, a black nylon Kate Spade, which cost a hundred bucks. Luckily, she didn't carry her checkbook, but she did have three zillion credit cards; Visa, Amex, Ann Taylor, Gap, Lord amp; Taylor, Nordstrom. Her ATM card and her driver's license were gone; and worse, so were her DOJ creds, in their little black bifold.

Vicki couldn't believe it. Losing her Justice ID was an even bigger deal than losing her license. A guy at work had lost his and had to get authorization from Bale and reapply to Washington for a replacement. She couldn't even get into the office building without it these days.

"Argh!" Vicki considered calling 911, but she had no cell. And Mrs. Bristow had no telephone. She threw her stuff back in her purse, scrambled to her feet, and sprinted for the door after Mrs. Bristow. Okay, so I haven't worked out in a few days. I can still catch a crack addict.

She ran through the door, her coat flying open, and hurried down the steps onto the sidewalk. It was darkening now and so cold; the sky was a frozen blue. The rising moon was full, casting a cool whiteness. She looked right, then left, down Lincoln Street. The sidewalk was still deserted. The row houses stood silent, not giving up their secrets. Mrs. Bristow wasn't in sight. It hadn't been that long. Where had the woman gone? She couldn't drive; she could barely stand. Was she in a neigh-bor's house?

Vicki sprinted next door and peered in a cracked window, but there was no light inside and the house seemed still. She went to the next house and knocked. No lights were on inside, and nobody answered. She ran to the Cabrio, pulled the keys from her purse, chirped the car unlocked, and hopped in. She'd find the woman faster in the car. She switched on the ignition and zoomed out of the space, going the right way on the one-way street, then taking a right onto Washington Street, another right onto Harrison, then a third right onto Van Buren.

No Mrs. Bristow. Vicki turned on the heat, and it blew a cold stream into her face. She drove around, looking. The next few minutes were a blur of American presidents until she looked to the right. Behind Lincoln was a narrow street that ran parallel to it, almost an alley. The crooked green sign read CATER STREET, but the light at the corner was out. In the moonlight, Vicki could barely see shadows moving on the street, at the far end.

There. Shuffling toward the shadows was Arissa Bristow, easily recognizable because she wore only her housedress. The poor woman had no coat on and moved through the cold night with surprising speed. Vicki pulled over to the curb, cut the ignition and put her hand on the door handle, about to get out and run after her. Then she stopped herself.

How would it look? An AUSA running down the street, physically tackling the aged, crack-addicted mother of someone she was prosecuting? Not a great idea. Vicki weighed her options. She wanted her wallet and her phone back, but she wasn't supposed to be here anyway. Also, she felt a little scared at the prospect of running down a dark street in this neighborhood. I'm not from the suburbs for nothing.

Then she had a better, or at least a safer, idea. Mrs. Bristow had wanted to smoke, and now, thanks to her new lawyer, she had fifty bucks in cash. There was only one place she would go-to buy more crack. It might be interesting to see where she bought it. Vicki stayed in the driver's seat and watched Mrs. Bristow travel purposefully up the street, her dress flapping like a flag. Decrepit row houses lined the street; some with lights on, some without. There seemed to be activity five houses down, at what appeared to be at a vacant lot, its entrance partially obscured by bare city trees. Mrs. Bristow approached the trees and turned right, disappearing into the darkness of the vacant lot.

Vicki's breath steamed up her windows and she rubbed out a circle on the passenger side. She kept her eyes trained on the trees. A large figure came out of the lot, with another shorter figure. The car got colder, the heat dissipating quickly through the thin convertible skin. Maybe there was a good reason VW stopped making Cabrios. She checked her watch: 6:15. She waited… 6:40. She wondered when Reheema would get released from the FDC. Would she come to see her mother? Vicki tucked her cold hands into her jacket pockets. She developed an ache in her neck from looking to the right so much.

The sky darkened to blue-black ink but still no Mrs. Bris-tow. A few people, maybe five or six, went into the lot behind the tree and came out again. The only activity on the block was at the vacant lot. It had to be drug sales, but where was Mrs. Bristow? What if the woman had been hurt or had a seizure of some kind? Or what if Mrs. Bristow had just smoked up and fallen asleep in the lot? She couldn't survive outside in the night, not at this temperature.

Vicki was putting two and two together, developing a working theory. Maybe Reheema hadn't resold the guns, but had given them to her mother, who had sold or traded them for crack. Guns were valuable currency to drug dealers, the engine powering the straw trade. The theory was consistent with what had happened at Vicki's proffer conference and even jibed with Cavanaugh's proffer conference. It was possible that Reheema wasn't giving up the name because she wasn't about to flip on her own mother.

BOOM! Suddenly a loud bang came from the window on the driver's side. Vicki jumped in fright and looked over. A fist pounded on her driver's-side window. The Cabrio rocked with the impact. A man in a black hood loomed inches from her face.

"Get outta here, bitch!" he yelled, but Vicki was already twisting on the ignition and hitting the gas.

She sped down the street, cranking the Cabrio engine as fast as it could go, and she didn't stop speeding until her heartbeat returned to normal. At some point she came to a red light, unsure if she was in Atlantic City or maybe Maine, but she didn't care. She was away from scary guys in hoods. But she had left Mrs. Bristow behind, and that worried her.

She drove a few blocks until she spotted an Exxon station, then dug around in the car seat and retrieved a red scrunchy, a chipped grape Chiclet, and what she had wanted in the first place. She popped the Chiclet, got out of the car, and headed for the phone booth. Frigid air hit her like a blast; she hadn't realized what a cocoon the Cabrio had been. She opened the booth's squeaky collapsible door, which had left its runners long ago, fed the pay phone, and dialed her own cell phone. It was picked up after two rings.

"Yo," said a man's voice, and Vicki was pissed. Mrs. Bris-tow had already unloaded the phone?

"That's my cell phone, pal! Who are you?" she shouted, but the man hung up. She pressed redial and when he picked up, she shouted again, "Where's Arissa-"