"Not at all."

"Can you take him over to the guys in Child Abuse?" I asked Mike.

"Sure."

"I probably have more sophisticated caller ID equipment than the NYPD, but do what you can."

"What's in it for you?" I asked, puzzled by this offer to help. "I mean, trying to arrange a meeting with me and Dulles."

"I want a good life for this child, Ms. Cooper. I want him to have a life without his father, to be absolutely honest with you. Now that puts me in a sticky situation legally, which is why I hope this visit can be off-the-record. I've made a lot of money in the last ten years."

"Practicing law?" Chapman asked. "All Coop gets is a city paycheck every two weeks and a shitload of aggravation."

"Investments. Clients who've put me into lucrative deals. A bit of good advice and a lot of luck. Bottom line? I've got a wife I adore, an apartment on Central Park West, a beach house on Nantucket, and a ninety-two-foot yacht to sail me there. What I don't have," Graham Hoyt said to both of us, "is a child. My wife and I would like to adopt Dulles Tripping. We can give him a good life, a stable one-maybe even a joyous one."

"And Andrew knows this?"

"Of course not. It's why I'd be thrilled to see you put his ass in jail. The best that happens is that he might step out of the way and clear a path for us to file for adoption. The worst would be that he's out of the child's life, behind bars, until Dulles reaches his majority and can make decisions for himself."

"How about Peter Robelon?" Battaglia didn't trust him, but I assumed part of that stemmed from Robelon's plans to run against him in the next primary. "Does he have any idea what you're interested in doing?"

"Look, Ms. Cooper. Why don't both of you sit down with me for an hour or two tomorrow? I'll lay out everything for you. Hopefully, by then, Dulles will have come to his senses and returned to Mrs. Wykoff-or called me. You tell me exactly what it is you want to get from the child, and I'll give you all the family history I can muster. We have the same basic goal, after all. Fair?"

The day was shot anyway. "In the afternoon?" I asked. "Want to come here?"

"I'll tell you what. Meet me at my club at two o'clock. It's right in Midtown. We can have lunch and figure out a plan."

He reached for another business card and wrote out the address.

"I was asking you about Robelon. Don't you think he'd have something to say about this? Tripping must be paying him a good piece of change to defend him."

"Tripping's got no money," Hoyt said.

"But," I answered, "I thought he inherited some when his mother died last fall."

"He inherited a run-down cottage on a half-acre of land in Tonawanda County, a pantry full of his mother's homemade preserves, and his late father's gene for madness."

"And his business?"

"There are enough legitimate former feds to do all the security consulting the government or private enterprises need. Nobody wants to hire someone with Andrew's psych background. He pulls in next to nothing from that. We all throw him some odd jobs now and then, and help him with money to live-and make bail."

"So what's in it for Robelon?"

"Tell Paul Battaglia not to lean on me until after the adoption procedure is completed, and he'll be thrilled to know that Tripping can give him whatever he wants on Robelon. That's the real reason I stopped in to see Jack Kliger tonight. Tripping claims he's got information on several insider trading deals that Peter Robelon engineered."

I was incredulous. "He's blackmailed Peter into representing him for this trial?"

Hoyt picked up his briefcase and walked me to the elevator. "Peter Robelon would kill to keep Andrew Tripping out of jail."

14

Mike put me into a Yellow Cab and said good night, turning back from well-trafficked Centre Street onto Hogan Place, to take Graham Hoyt up to meet the detectives investigating Dulles's disappearance.

The ride uptown took more than half an hour, city streets clogged with bridge-and-tunnel suburbanites who made the Friday-night drive into Manhattan for restaurants, theaters, clubs, and bars.

I put my key in the lock and opened my apartment door. It was good to be home, and I felt happy with the anticipation of an intimate evening. I removed the jacket of my suit, slipped out of my heels, and tiptoed into the kitchen in my bare feet. Jake was thoroughly engrossed in the preparation of what smelled like a divine fettuccine alle vongole, clam knife in hand, struggling over the sink to open a dozen extra cherrystones for an appetizer. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his neck, biting his earlobe as I did.

"Can't you wait until dinner?" he asked, swiveling to meet my lips with his.

"I'm starving. I didn't take much out of you. How about a squeeze?"

"I'm covered in clam juice," he said, holding his arms out away from his side.

"I really don't care, dammit." I lifted the silk shell of my suit over my head and started undressing in the kitchen. "It's been a long week."

"You must have kicked ass in court today. You're awfully frisky."

"On the contrary, I barely got out with my case intact. I may not be in such a good mood when Peter Robelon finishes cross-examining my witness on Monday, so if you want some affection, this is the night to get it." I was standing naked in the middle of the kitchen. "Here, you can't get food stains on anything I'm wearing. How about it?"

"These aren't even oysters and look at the effect they have on you," Jake said, putting down the knife and taking me in his arms.

We embraced and kissed each other for several minutes before I took Jake's hand and led him into the bedroom, where we slowly made love.

I almost succeeded at forcing the day's dark thoughts from my mind as I responded to his touch. Too many times in the past months I had allowed the sad business of my work to encroach on the private emotions so essential to our relationship, and it had made my time with Jake much more difficult than it needed to be.

I rolled onto my side and let him caress me, fitting in tightly against his body with my head on his outstretched arm. "Did you hear any news tonight?" I asked.

"I haven't had the television on. I picked up the food at Grace's Marketplace and just started to cook. Why?"

"The little boy in my case is missing. The police are putting out his picture and description tonight. I just wondered how it played."

Jake stroked my hair with his free hand. "We'll have a nice, relaxed dinner, and then we can check out the local news at eleven. How come you're so calm about it?"

"Major Case has the assignment. Battaglia agrees I shouldn't be the one to work it. The kid's lawyer stopped by to see me after court. He's known Dulles since he was born, and he told Mike and me that he's a very resourceful boy. That he's run away many times before, when he lived upstate, and that he always comes back in a day or two."

"Where does he go?" Jake asked.

Riding down in the elevator, Graham Hoyt had told Mike and me that Dulles usually showed up at a school friend's home before bedtime. When he was living with his elderly grandmother, he fantasized about being part of a real family. He'd settle on a classmate whose parents were warm and loving, and where there were other children in the household, sisters and brothers with whom to laugh and play and argue. I explained that to Jake.

"How long do I have until dinner's on the table?" I asked, slipping out of the bed.

"As long as you like. Everything's ready to go."

I went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub, filling it with scented crystals. When the steam had clouded the mirrors and the bubbles reached to the rim, I switched on the jets and climbed in for a relaxing soak. Jake appeared with two glasses of a chilled Corton-Charlemagne, and I reached out an arm from within the bubbles to sip it. He kneeled beside the tub, took the washcloth, and gently ran it across my neck and shoulders, while I described my day in court.