“I told you,” Harrington muttered as he packed up his files.

Barrett didn’t linger for any more recriminations. He pushed his way through the crowd of Ivins’s groupies clogging the center aisle. Detective Riley was still in the back row on the left, and Barrett did a deliberate about-face in the other direction. And there in the back row on the right was Shay Lambert.

He almost didn’t recognize her. Gone was the mousy brown hair in the girlish ponytail. Gone was the cheap beige suit and the prim buttoned-to-the-neck white shirt. Today she wore a sleek black dress, and her hair was long and loose and lit through with a shimmer of golden strands. She looked glamorous and, as she rose to her full height, formidable. She locked eyes with him, and in her cold stare he suddenly saw that it wasn’t only exoneration she was bent on. She wanted revenge.

He felt suddenly breathless. He shoved past the last knot of people in the aisle and burst panting through the double doors. Lester Willard was leaning against the wall in the corridor, trying and failing to look inconspicuous. Barrett brushed past a woman by the door and closed in on Lester.

“Sir,” Lester said, straightening. “She’s in—”

“I know she’s in there,” Barrett snapped. “Where’s Culligan?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

There were certain things Lester made it his business not to know, and Barrett guessed that Culligan’s latest bender was one of them. He grabbed the back of Lester’s neck and pulled his head down to his level. He spoke into his ear. “You need to grab her. Next chance you get. No more fucking delays.”

“Yes, sir. But”—Lester cut a quick glance down the corridor—“she’s got security now.”

Barrett followed his gaze to the woman by the courtroom door. She had short hair and wore an ill-fitting pantsuit and a pair of soft-soled Rockports masquerading as oxfords. She had to be either a bodyguard or a lesbian lawyer. Or both. “Fuck,” he said. Then, “Just the one?”

“So far.”

He thought a second. “Unless she’s wearing an adult diaper, she’s gotta take a leak at least once a day. Stay on Shay. Find your opening.”

“Do my best, sir.”

LAMBERT’S STARE SENT a chill through Barrett that lasted the rest of the day. He smoked through half a pack on his office balcony while he brooded over it. He tried to reach Culligan at all his numbers, but he didn’t pick up at any of them; his assistant tried to cover for him, said he wasn’t feeling well and must have turned off his phone, but Barrett knew he was either drunk or deliberately dodging the calls.

Lately Culligan had shown little stomach for the whole operation. Oh, he was fine with it provided everything happened on the other side of the planet. Or—probably more to the point—provided it didn’t happen to white people. His attitude changed once it involved Shay. He even tried to argue against the Tony Low operation.