She closed the album and put it back in the huge purse and took out a red doeskin wallet. She looked in the wallet and got a faraway look like she was working with numbers. Then she pulled out two twenties and put them on my desk. “I can pay you forty dollars now, and forty dollars per month for forty-nine months.”

I said, “Jesus Christ, Ms. Sheridan.”

She clenched her jaw and brought out another ten.

“All right. Fifty dollars.”

I raised my hands, got up, and went to the glass doors that lead out to the little balcony. The doors that came with the office were aluminum sliders, but a couple of years ago I had them changed to a nice set of double-glazed French with brass handles. I opened the doors, set them so that the breeze wouldn’t blow them closed, and then I looked out. Four stories below, two guys were sitting across the street in a tan unmarked sedan. A tall guy with shaggy, thick-cut hair was sitting behind the steering wheel and a shorter guy with a ragged face was slouched in the passenger’s side. The tall guy had long forearms and a ropy neck and looked a lot like Mark Thurman. Son-of-a-gun. I turned away from the doors and looked at Jennifer Sheridan. Nope. She didn’t know that they were out there. “Mark work today?”

She nodded. “That’s right. He works Monday through Friday, from eleven until six.”

“He let his hair grow since he went to REACT?”

Jennifer Sheridan looked surprised that I’d ask. “Yes. He had to for the undercover work.”

Thurman, all right.

Jennifer Sheridan sat forward on the chair. Expectant. “I know that Mark’s in trouble, Mr. Cole. Even without conversations and bank accounts and things like that. I confronted him, and he denied it, but I don’t believe him. He’s lying to me, but it’s tearing him apart to do so. So I’m trying to help him by the best means possible. According to the files at Watkins, Okum & Beale, that’s you.”

I nodded again and walked back to the desk and looked at her. You could see how much she loved him just by looking at her. I said, “So you believe that Mark’s hiding something, and you want me to find out what.”

“Yes.”

“You think he’s trapped by it.”

“Yes.”

“What if I find out that he isn’t? What if I find out that Mark Thurman isn’t who you think he is? What if I look, and I find something that changes the way that you feel about him, and the way that he feels about you?”