“Of course.” I held out my hand. “It’s Don, right? How are you?”

He seemed pleased to be recognized. “I just wanted to say hello. And wish you well.”

I thanked him warmly.

“Does that happen often?” the reporter asked after the lawyer left.

“At least once a day. It’s amazing, really, how little stigma a murder charge carries.”

“It’s because your case is so easy to relate to. Everybody dreads being stuck in an elevator. Then throw in a gun and an unstable passenger? It’s their worst nightmare.”

I finished my spinach-and-mushroom crepe, promised the reporter my decision soon, and left him with the check. Then it was another limo ride, farther downtown, to the offices of the Harrington firm.

Mark had tasked me with finding any evidence that Northstar or its attorneys had conducted a reverse auction and reached a secret deal with Ned Bartman. So far I’d taken the depositions of two of the company’s senior executives. Today I’d scheduled the deposition of its CEO, a man named Nelson Ledbetter.

Dick Harrington had sent an underling to the previous depositions, but he was there in person today to defend his client’s CEO. Also present was Ned Bartman, Mark’s rival for class counsel, along with a young associate from Bartman’s office, a nervous-looking boy named Joshua Matson who sat at his boss’s elbow and took notes.

Ledbetter was a Houston transplant whose elevated status in the company apparently spared him from having to know anything. In his laconic Texas drawl, he denied knowing whether the company’s lawyers had conducted a reverse auction among the firms vying to be class counsel; he denied knowing Ned Bartman or having seen him before today; he denied knowing anyone else in Bartman’s firm; he denied knowing whether Northstar had entered into any agreement with Bartman to limit the company’s monetary exposure; and he even denied knowing what a reverse auction was.

The other two Northstar executives I’d deposed had been equally unburdened with any knowledge. But that was fine by me. This was a long game I was playing, and I had them on the record now.

As all the players packed up their briefcases to go, I handed my card to the court reporter and ordered an overnight transcript. Then I tucked another card into the pants pocket of young Joshua Matson. On the back I’d written: Drinks tonight?

LUNCH WAS NEXT on my schedule, this time at the Four Seasons. Nearly every day since I’d been out of Valhalla, I’d had lunch or drinks with lawyers I used to know or wished to meet. I was renewing old acquaintances and making new ones all over town. Everyone I called was curious enough to say yes to my invitation, and as the word got out, I was soon on the receiving end of those invitations. It was more than curiosity; they were fascinated. How could anyone go through what I had and emerge like—this? I had not only survived, I had prevailed. Or so they all predicted.