I finished drying off a dish and threw the dish towel over my shoulder and turned and held Sarah by the shoulders. “The last thing in the world I want to do is get into any more situations where I, or anyone in this family, is put at risk. If anyone understands how unsuited I am to that sort of thing, to taking on the frickin’ forces of evil, believe me, it’s me.”

Sarah eyed me warily before slipping her arms around me. She rested her head on my chest. “Okay,” she said. Then, more softly, “Okay.”

I tried Trixie again in the morning, from my desk at the Metropolitan. She picked up.

“I tried to get you last night,” I said. “You weren’t answering.”

“I was out. And besides, if I can’t risk clients coming to the house, what’s the point of answering the phone? Why? Everything okay?”

“I can’t make it today. I can’t meet with you and Martin Benson.”

“But Zack, it’s already set up. How’s it going to look if you’re a no-show? Isn’t that going to make him even more suspicious?”

“You’ve told him I’m coming? That I, personally, am going to be there?”

“I sort of hinted that there might be a surprise guest,” Trixie said. I didn’t say anything for a moment, so Trixie continued, “Zack, I know I’m putting you in a bit of a bind here, no pun intended, but this is really important to me. Remember that night you came to me, with that ledger in hand, asking me to figure it out while those nutcases were hunting you down?”

“I remember,” I said.

“So I’m calling in a favor. Just talk to the guy. Look, Zack, there’s more at stake here than you realize.”

“I wish you’d tell me.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I wish I could. Maybe, sometime, I can. But for now, I’m asking you to take this on faith.”

I swallowed. Shit. “I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.

“You’ll be where?”

I looked over my shoulder. Sarah. “What?” I said.

“You got something on the go? Because I was just going to give you something.” She was standing there with a piece of paper in her hand.

“Sure, what is it?”

“But if you’ve got another story, I can hand this off to someone else.”

“No, no, let me have it.”

“Okay, well, it’s just some city hall budget thing. The bureau’s a bit short-staffed this week, so we’re helping out. It’s about the proposed Windsor Street bridge project over Mackenzie Creek. The way it is now, you have to go all the way down to Broad, or up to Milner, and the neighborhood has been asking for a bridge for years and every year when they prepare the budget the money gets put in but at the last minute gets taken out.”

“Yeah sure, I can do that.” I took the sheet from her that had some contact numbers on it and an earlier story someone at the city hall bureau had done.