By the time their drinks arrived (a Heineken for Frankel and a scotch and soda for Grant), they’d told Rachel about their trip to Far Rockaway. Frankel pulled out his iPhone and showed her a picture of the newspaper he’d snapped.

Rachel stared at Grant’s marked-up face. She turned to her father, her eyes filled with clear concern. “Oh, my God. What are you two doing about this?”

“Not letting it hit the papers, that’s for sure,” replied Frankel.

Grant could see his daughter stiffen. “If either of you think I’d . . .”

Grant held up a hand. “No one’s accusing you of anything, Rachel.”

“Sorry. That didn’t come out right,” said Frankel. “I know you put your neck on the line for us today after the press conference. Particularly for your father.”

“I keep telling you both that I just want to help.”

“Which is one of the reasons we’re here,” Grant said. “Besides me getting the opportunity to share another meal with my Americanized daughter.”

“C’mon, I ain’t changed that much,” she said with a smile while putting on a Queens accent.

Grant laughed for maybe the first time since arriving in the States. “Why don’t you suggest what to order and then we can tell you the rest?”

Rachel insisted they have both the basil and garlic flatbreads and a margherita pizza. She chose a couple of pastas that they could share from the daily printed menu and the waiter left to put in the order.

A second round of drinks arrived right around the time Grant finished telling Rachel about his discussion with Sergeant Hawley at the Yard and how she might be able to help them.

“Your father reminded me that he spent years going over his cases with you,” Frankel told her.

“Since I was a child,” Rachel said. “I used to find crime scene photos and evidence bags he’d brought home and they fascinated me. I had tons of questions and Dad was more than happy to answer all of them.”

“Naturally, it horrified her mother. But I kept telling Allison that curiosity was something that needed to be encouraged, not stomped on, in a child.”

“Mom completely gave up on us both after I asked Dad to bring specimens from the lab back home and she found them in the fridge.”

“I only did that twice,” Grant insisted.

“That’s because I made him take me with him to work on the weekends,” Rachel explained. “I got to see plenty of good stuff there.”

“I see how you ended up becoming a journalist,” Frankel observed.

Grant went on to explain how they’d decided it was best to keep a possible connection between the killer and himself out of the papers until they knew more.