She laughed. “If it were up to me, you could. Does the practice of law repel you so much?”

“Look, I’m thirty-eight years old. I can’t just get in line at the big firms with this year’s grads and expect to get taken on. ‘So, Mr. Barrington, what have you been doing with yourself in the fifteen years between getting your law degree and passing the bar?’ ‘Oh, I’ve been arresting drug dealers and investigating murders and other sordid crimes.’ ‘Wonderful, that experience will stand you in good stead in our estate planning department. Will a hundred thousand a year be enough?’”

She laughed again. “There are other facets of the law besides estate planning, you know.”

“Sure there are. You know which ones I’d be qualified for? I’ll tell you; I’d be qualified to hang around the criminal courts picking up burglary defenses, drug busts, and drunk driving cases. That’s what ex-cops who are lawyers do—they go to night school, get a law degree, and, when they retire, they pick up an extra income by leaning on their old buddies on the force and in the DA’s office to go easy on the scum they’re defending.”

“You underestimate yourself,” she said. “Still, that’s an endearing quality in a world where overconfidence is a way of life.”

“Let’s order,” Stone said, picking up a menu.

“I think I’d like you for dinner,” Cary said.

“Let’s start with a Caesar salad, and go on to the osso buco,” he said. “Then we can have each other for dessert.”

“I always have room for dessert,” she said.

And she did. Stone lay panting in the darkness when she had finished—spent, but still full of desire for her. He had never felt anything quite like it. He was in love with her, but he had been in love before. It was obsession, and that was foreign to him.

She wrapped herself around him. “That was delicious,” she breathed, kissing him behind the ear. “I’ll want more soon.”

“You’ll kill me,” he panted, “but I can deny you nothing.”

“Don’t even try,” she said.

Chapter

24

The meeting took place in the district attorney’s private conference room, but the DA himself didn’t attend. Al Hagler, the chief prosecutor, sat at the end of the table.

Stone had the distinct feeling that this room had not been chosen just because it was available; Hagler believed in effect, and the venue added authority to his position. It was just as significant that the DA was not present, though his presence was felt. The proceedings, whatever they were, had his tacit support, but, this way, he could not be personally tainted by the outcome. It was interesting, too, that Deputy Commissioner Waldron was not in attendance, nor was Chief of Detectives Delgado. It was just Hagler, Leary, Dino, and Stone.