“Let me get right to the point,” he says, perhaps because he too realizes that his effort at humor fell flat. “Can you find some time to meet with me today?”

“Okay . . .” I say, tentatively.

“Great. I’m going to put you down as my eleven thirty. I’ll see you then.”

I ask him what we’ll be discussing, but he doesn’t respond. When I pull the phone from my ear, I see that our call has ended.

It hardly matters. I’ve already deduced the reason Drake McKenney wants a private audience with me. It’s the only thing that the DA could be calling me about, now that the chief of his Special Victims Bureau is dead and her deputy under arrest: he wants me to run Special Vics.

I jump into the shower and blow-dry my hair straight, like I did for work back in the day. Then I pull out my lawyer clothing—a dark blue pantsuit and lighter blue silk blouse—which hasn’t been called into service for more than nine months.

Looking in the mirror, my image seems strange to me. I’m so accustomed to seeing unemployed Ella Broden—no makeup, in jeans and a T-shirt—or Cassidy, with her heavy mascara and skin-tight clothing, but not this totally put-together lawyer staring back. I haven’t seen her for a long time.

An hour later, I’m back at the District Attorney’s office for the first time since my last day as an ADA. When I left, the joke among my colleagues was that I’d be back all the time to meet with them on behalf of clients. My father’s practice, however, is nearly all federal-based, so during my three months of employment with him, I logged time in the United States Attorney’s office, talking to the prosecutors there. I didn’t have any cause to visit my old stomping grounds.

Being back at One Hogan is like returning to high school after you’ve graduated—it’s an odd feeling. I no longer belong in the place that defined me for so long. That point is made clear when I don’t even recognize the security guard—a guy who looks like he’s still in high school himself. I apparently don’t register with him either, because he asks to see my identification and instructs me to put my belongings on the conveyer belt.

“Where’s Richie?” I say, a reference to the man who had his job for at least thirty years.

“Who?”

“Richie . . . he had this job when I was an ADA.”

“When was that?”

“I left about nine months ago.”

“I’ve only been working here for three, so I don’t know.”

He hands me a blue visitor’s decal with the number eight circled. Everyone refers to the DA’s domain simply as the Eighth Floor. It’s the DA equivalent of the Oval Office.