Sophie Hartley had just settled her patient on the examining table when the summons came. Rita Hernandez was an illegal immigrant who had escaped from El Salvador in search of the American dream. Instead, she’d ended up working a street corner in the Mission with a pimp who thought wearing a condom was a denial of machismo. Now she was HIV-positive and six months pregnant and she wasn’t convinced that the Grafton Clinic was a safe place to be. Sophie had finally persuaded her she wasn’t going to turn her in to the authorities, so a nurse telling Sophie she had a transatlantic call was the last thing she needed right then. “Momento, por favor, señorita,” she said in her English-accented Spanish, giving Rita a calming pat on the ankle. “Stay with her, would you?” she asked the nurse, then headed for the reception area.

“Line two,” the receptionist mouthed at her between responding to waiting patients.

Sophie picked up the phone. “This had better be good,” she said impatiently.

“I love you too,” the familiar voice said. “Sorry to hit you at work, but it’s the time difference. I hoped I could pitch you into doing me a favor this evening when you get off work, then you’d be able to call me back in the morning our time with the results.”

“What kind of a favor?” Sophie said guardedly, running a hand through her hair in the familiar gesture of affectionate frustration that Lindsay tended to produce in her.

“Penny was so paranoid she used to drive down to Half Moon Bay every week with a spare set of back-up disks. She used to leave them with . . .”

“Carolyn Coogan, her best friend from high school,” Sophie finished for her. “They live on Palisades Drive.”

“How did you know that?” Lindsay demanded.

“There are a lot of miles of shore around the Bay Area. I once asked Penny if she had some sentimental attachment to Half Moon Bay, given how often she used to drop in on us. She said there was nothing sentimental about it, purely practical.”

“You never told me,” Lindsay said.

“Just one of my hundreds of dark secrets,” Sophie teased. “You want me to go and see Carolyn?”

“Penny’s laptop has gone missing. There are no back-up disks anywhere in the flat, and nobody’s got a copy of her manuscript. I was thinking maybe she’d stashed another set somewhere, with somebody like Carolyn. And if so, whether she mentioned it to her. I know it’s a long shot, but it would save me wasting tomorrow trying to track down everybody Penny knew over here. I’d really appreciate it,” Lindsay added, injecting a dose of pathos into her voice.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sophie said repressively.

“So you won’t want to know who Meredith had her fling with,” Lindsay said tantalizingly.

Sophie groaned. “Make it quick. I have a patient waiting.”