9

Mercer left me at my apartment at nine-thirty. I dropped my mail and files on the table in my entryway and fished Nancy Taggart's home number out of my pocketbook.

I had waited to call her, certain she would know about the disappearance of Dulles Tripping and his foster mother.

"Ms. Taggart? It's Alex Cooper."

"Yes?" It was more of a question than an acknowledgment.

"I know that Judge Moffett asked his law secretary to call you about having Dulles in his chambers late tomorrow afternoon."

"She did."

"It's not going to be a problem, is it?" I asked.

Taggart hesitated. "I don't expect so."

"Do you know where the boy is tonight?"

"Look, Ms. Cooper. I don't have to answer any of your questions. You know that."

"That's certainly true. I just wanted to make sure you knew that the foster mother called me today, to-"

Taggart snapped at me, "When? What did she want?"

"It would be awfully juvenile of me," I said, "to tell you that I didn't have to answer any of your questions, wouldn't it? I assume you have the same concerns for Dulles's well-being that I do."

There was silence. Taggart obviously wasn't willing to concede that I was interested in anything but a prosecutorial victory.

I tried again. "I don't know the foster mother's name," I said, thinking that would reassure Taggart. "But she sounded frantic when she spoke with my assistant, telling us she was taking the boy to 'a safer place.'"

"I think she panicked for no good reason at all," said the foundling hospital's lawyer. "There's nothing distinctive-looking about Andrew Tripping. I think this is much ado about nonsense."

"Is that what you'd like me to put on the record in the morning?"

"I'd advise you not to bring this up with the judge until I get to court, Ms. Cooper. His secretary told me to come at four o'clock, after school. I intend for us to be there."

"But now you know Dulles won't even be going to school."

"I have every reason to believe the foster mother-who is very reliable-will contact me first thing tomorrow and we can follow the plan that Judge Moffett wants."

"Look," I said, trying to reassure the woman. "All you need to do is say the word and the police will help you find them. We can trace the phone call, we can work with the principal. I promise I won't use that opportunity to talk to the boy. If there's a chance he's in more danger, then the police should be the ones-"

"Don't you think there's been enough damage done with the police dragging the child's father out of their apartment in handcuffs? In keeping the father on Rikers for more than a week? For splitting up the family? Let's leave the police out of it this time," Taggart said.

"Then I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, unless you need help from my assistant during the day."

I hung up the phone and walked into the kitchen, turning on the light to see just how bare the cupboard was. There was a delicious slab of a smooth pâté, mousse de canard, in the refrigerator, left over from my weekend purchases. I scrounged for some crackers and a few cornichons for garnish, poured a Diet Coke, and headed to the den to try to unwind before my last review of the morning's presentation.

The phone rang before I sat down on the sofa. "I was about to give up on you," Jake said. "Thought you'd be home early. I've already left three messages."

"I haven't even been in the bedroom to pick them up. I'm just sitting down to dinner," I said, describing my meal to him.

"Doesn't sound like enough to keep body and soul together. I'll have to make up for that tomorrow night."

"What's all the noise in the background?" I asked.

"It's the party at the British embassy I told you about. They've got all the Washington correspondents here, sort of an annual meet-the-press deal. Dinner and dancing, but it's about to break up."

Who's your date?is what I really wanted to ask Jake, but under our new arrangement, we were both free to spend time with other people if we were not available, since our jobs interfered with our personal lives so frequently. Instead, I told him I couldn't wait to see him and tried to believe it when he whispered that he loved me into the telephone.

I dialed my best friend and former college roommate, Nina Baum, who lived in California. "Great timing. You just got me coming in the door."

I could hear her four-year-old son screeching in delight at her arrival. "I'll let you go. Call me over the weekend."

"You sound flat, Alex. What's going on?"

No one on earth knew me better than Nina. We had leaned on each other through every good time and bad in each other's lives. I told her what had happened to my case, how depressing it was to see the photos of Queenie at the morgue, and how jealous I was to think of Jake at a party with someone else.

"You've heard me on this subject, Alex." Nina was not keen on Jake Tyler. She had adored Adam Nyman, the medical student I'd met during my law school days at Virginia. She had mourned with me when he had been killed in a car wreck on his way to our wedding on Martha's Vineyard, and she had helped me throughout my slow emergence from the black hole into which I sunk after absorbing the news of Adam's death.

In the years since that tragedy, I had never let myself get as close to anyone as I had to Jake, only to find that my dearest friend, whom I trusted implicitly, thought he was too superficial and self-involved for me.

"Try your damn case, will you?" Nina said. "You want to know what time Jake gets home tonight? Forget it. You want to know what whoever she is he settled for in your absence was wearing to the party? Trust me, you would never have bought the rag in the first place. You want to know how much she knows about you? If she isn't sticking pins in a tall, blonde, mud-wrestling voodoo doll who thrives on competition by this time, she ought to go out and buy one immediately. Speak to you on Saturday. I've got to go feed Little Precious."

I laughed at Nina's nickname for her son and put down the phone.

When I finished my snack, I spread all the case papers out on my desk. I had outlined an opening statement, and now took half an hour to reduce it to an abbreviated list of bullet points. I smiled as I thought back to my first felony trial, when I'd stood before the jurors with a painstakingly detailed speech, written in essay form, of which I'd read every word. Midway through, the judge interrupted and wiggled his finger at me, asking me to approach. "Miss Cooper, this isn't a book report. Put down those pages and talk to the people before you lose them."

I had learned to abandon the crutch of too many notes and simply sketch out the main points I needed to make. The advantage of vertical prosecution-of working a case from the moment of the first police report up to the verdict-was that we knew the facts cold and could proceed without any notes or outlines.

In the morning I would spend one last hour with Paige Vallis, steadying her before her difficult day on the witness stand. I arranged all the questions I would ask her and made a list of the items I would ask the court to premark for identification, to avoid delay in the presence of the jury.

By midnight I had undressed and turned out the light, but the adrenaline that fueled my courtroom rhythm made a good night's sleep impossible. At six o'clock I got up and showered. Blow-drying my hair, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and wondered how long it would be before the dark circles that frequently took up residence beneath my eyes during a trial would reappear.

I finished dressing and dabbed some perfume on my wrists and behind my ears. I called a car service and went down to the lobby to wait for the sedan to take me to the office, and I was at the coffee cart at the building entrance before seven-thirty.