“—Berman shows up and gets his tape. They don’t seem to know that the lady hasn’t been seen since, and I want to keep it that way as long as possible. This is Barrington and Bacchetti’s case, reporting directly to me. Barrington, Bacchetti, go sleep. I don’t want you back here before noon. The rest of you, check on every private clinic, every doctor’s office in the five boroughs, if you have to. Check Jersey and Westchester, too. On Long Island, just check the fancy private clinics. I want this woman found this morning, dead or alive. When you find her, Stone and Bacchetti get the interview, unless it’s deathbed stuff. Nobody, but nobody says a word to the press except me, for the moment. I don’t have to tell you what this celebrity shit is like. The mayor’ll be on the phone as soon as he wakes up, and he’ll want to know. I’ll ask him to buy us a few hours to find the woman.”

As the detectives shuffled out, Leary called Stone and Dino back. “Barrington, I’m assuming you’re up to this. You’re still on limited duty, officially.”

“I’m up to it, Lieutenant.”

“I mean it about the sleep,” Leary said. “You grab four or five hours. This one ain’t likely to be over today, and I want you in shape to fuckin’ handle it.”

“Yessir,” they replied in unison.

Stone limped up the steps of the Turtle Bay brownstone, retrieved the Times from the stoop, and let himself in. He was met by the combined scent of decay and fresh wood shavings. No messages on the answering machine in the downstairs hallway. Too tired and sore to take the stairs, he took the elevator to the third floor. It creaked a lot, but it made it.

His bedroom looked ridiculous. An ordinary double bed stood against a wall, with only a television set, an exercise machine, an old chest of drawers, and a chair to help fill the enormous room. He switched on the television and started to undress.

“Television journalist Sasha Nijinsky last night fell from the terrace of her twelfth-floor East Side penthouse. An off-duty police detective who was at the scene gave chase to someone who had apparently been in Ms. Nijinsky’s apartment, but was, himself, injured and lost the possible perpetrator. Astonishingly, Ms. Nijinsky may have survived the fall. She was taken to a Manhattan hospital, and we have had no further word on her condition. We’ll keep you posted as news comes in.”

“You’re guessing about the Manhattan hospital, sport,” Stone said to the newscaster. “That was my guess, too.”

He stripped off his clothes and stretched out on the bed, switching the channel to The Morning Show.