I was certainly the one who looked like a miscreant. Besides the tears in my jacket, the knees in my jeans had broken through when I slid across the pavement in them. My shoes were in tatters, my hair matted to my skull, and I didn’t even want to know what my face looked like. Justice may be blind, but she does favor a clean, neat appearance.

The Felittis had called Dick away from some party or other, but he’d stopped at home to change into an austere navy suit. Angela Willoughby was clearly impressed, both by his blond good looks and his imposingly wealthy demeanor: she allowed him to huddle in a corner with his clients.

When he came away he talked sorrowfully to Angela about the evening’s disaster. A subordinate had gone overboard in his loyalty to his employers. It was tragic that Simon Lezak had died in action, but fortunate that I’d survived.

I bared my teeth at the last sentence. “Glad you think so, Dick. Your daddy-in-law explain to you how old Simon happened to go overboard? How he jumped me to get me to the plant?”

“Misguided zeal,” Dick murmured. “They knew you’d broken into the plant before—they didn’t know how far you’d go in an investigation.”

I jumped up, or tried to—my muscles responded with a slow crawl—and grabbed his arm. “Dick. We need to talk. They’re not telling you the truth. You’re going to be blindsided.”

He gave me the superior smile that used to infuriate me fifteen years ago. “Later, Vic. I need to get my clients home, and I think you’d be glad to be there yourself.”

It was close to midnight by then. Willoughby was just agreeing that the Felittis and Chamfers could leave with Dick, when Conrad Rawlings showed up. I’d told Willoughby at the beginning of the evening that he and Terry Finchley were both involved in the case, but didn’t realize she’d actually sent someone to notify him. As it turned out, she hadn’t: he’d picked up word from someone at his precinct who’d heard it earlier on the police band.

Rawlings looked around the room. “Ms. W. I thought I told you I was going to be peeved if you went off to tackle thugs on your own without telling me. And I don’t even get the story from you in person. Some stranger has to tell me about it.”

I put my hands up to pat my filthy curls. “Detective Willoughby—Sergeant Rawlings. I think you met Dick Yarborough a couple of years ago, Sergeant. These other guys are Peter and Jason Felitti and Milt Chamfers. They’re going home. The detective here is sorry she had to bother such swell suburbanites.