I step outside McKenney’s office in a post-dreamlike state. Part of me wonders if I just imagined the entire encounter. To make it real, I call Gabriel.

“You’ll never guess who I just met with,” I say.

“Oprah,” he replies without hesitation.

“Drake McKenney.”

Gabriel doesn’t say anything back. That’s his standard MO—to stay quiet until I get to the point.

“He wants me to be the special prosecutor on the Dana Goodwin case.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that I wanted to take a day to think about it. But I honestly don’t see how I can say no.”

I hear him laugh. “Well, that part would be easy. What’s the line . . . you just put your lips together and say no.”

“I think the line is ‘blow.’”

This time it’s not a laugh I hear. It’s a deep sigh.

“Is this something you want to do? Not something you think you should do? But want to do?”

“That sounds like you think I shouldn’t.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong about that. Think about how much I’m going to enjoy working under you.”

It takes a second for the full meaning of his double entendre to sink in. By taking over the prosecution of the case, I’ll become his boss. When Dana and he were investigating, Gabriel was in charge, but now that a defendant is in custody and the matter is going to trial, I’d be calling the shots, and his job as the detective in charge of the investigation is now to assist me. I’m surprised that this hadn’t occurred to me sooner. It’s another reason my assignment might have appealed to McKenney. It gives him control not only over me, but also the NYPD.

After getting off the phone with Gabriel, I seek advice from the only other man I trust: my father. I call ahead to secure time on his schedule, though I know my father won’t have an open slot: nobody ever cancels an appointment, not with the nonrefundable $1,500 an hour he charges. Some client or other must be bumped for him to see me.

Ashleigh, his far-too-shapely secretary, greets me at the door to my father’s eponymous law firm. “So nice to see you again, Ella. The place just hasn’t been the same without you around.”

During my brief foray in criminal defense, when I worked with my father, I suspected that he might be seeing Ashleigh. At the time, I did not approve. She’s too young for him, and even though she is actually pretty smart if you engage her, the first impression she makes is of being a bimbo. Allison and I have spoken about it a few times; the one tangible change I can see in my life from therapy is that I’m less judgmental about whom people choose to love.