“So,” he said. She looked up and found him watching her intensely. “What do you think?”

“Heavenly,” she said. “So good, in fact, that nothing you can tell me can ruin it.”

He sighed. “Okay. Here’s what I learned: Seems this isn’t the first time Pretty Boy Floyd has been caught with his hands on a child. They weren’t easy to find, but I dug up three past complaints about him.”

Alicia’s spirits jumped. “Then, he’s got a record—a history of pedophilia. How the hell did we ever allow him in?”

“Hang on here. No record. The complaints were all dropped.”

“Dropped? All of them?”

He nodded, chewing slowly. “Seems he’s pretty well-off financially. Made a lot of money on Wall Street in the eighties and retired as a young millionaire with lots of time on his hands and a yen for kids.”

Good as the meal was, Alicia found her appetite waning. “He buys his way out.”

“Or threatens his way out, like he’s trying to do with you. He’s got a shark for a lawyer. Nasty SOB who loves to go for the throat.”

“In other words, those weren’t just empty threats.”

“Afraid not.”

“You’re really making my day.”

“Sorry. Just thought you should know what you’re up against.”

“I guess I already knew. Fineman called yesterday.”

“What he say?”

“Pretty much what you overheard. Told me I could expect to spend the next three to five years in and out of courtrooms, burning up every penny I earn in legal fees, then spending much of the rest of my working life paying off the punitive and pain-and-suffering damages he expected the court to award his client. Of course, I could avoid all that if I saw the light, realized how mistaken I was, and withdrew my complaint.”

“What a sweet guy. Goes to prove lawyers get the clients they deserve.”

Alicia leaned back and fought a wave of depression as a string of rationalizations raced through her brain: Kanessa hadn’t been done any physical harm, and she didn’t have enough self-awareness to have suffered any long-term psychological damage. And at least Floyd Stevens was out of the Center for good, so the kids there were safe from him. Maybe he’d been hurt and frightened enough by the beating to keep his hands to himself from now on.

The fact that she was allowing these thoughts to exist depressed Alicia even more.

“You okay?” Matthews asked.

“No.”

“Know what you’re going to do?”

Alicia stared at him. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

He met her gaze. “I haven’t known you very long, but I can’t see you doing anything else but hanging in there.”