Perhaps she should have listened. She often would wonder about that later. But at the time all she wanted was out. She wanted nothing that came from his precious family fortune. She allowed her lawyer to ask for child support only because she knew she would need it until she revived her art career.

Was Richard contrite? Did the smallest mote of guilt come to rest on the featureless, diamond-hard surface of his conscience? No. Did he do anything to secure a future for the child he had fathered? No. In fact, he instructed his lawyer to fight for minimal child support.

“No, Vicky,” Gia said, “I don’t think he does.”

Gia expected tears, but Vicky fooled her by smiling up at her.

“Jack loves us.”

Not this again!

“I know he does, honey, but—”

“Then why can’t he be my daddy?”

“Because…” How was she going to say this? “… because sometimes love just isn’t enough. There have to be other things. You have to trust each other, have the same values—”

“What are values?”

“Ohhh… you have to believe in the same things, want to live the same way.”

“I like Jack.”

“I know you do, honey. But that doesn’t mean Jack is the right man to be your new father.” Vicky’s blind devotion to Jack undermined Gia’s confidence in the child’s character judgment. She was usually so astute.

She lifted Vicky off her lap and rose to a hands-on-knees crouch. The heat in the playhouse was suffocating.

“Let’s go inside and get some lemonade.”

“Not right now,” Vicky said. “I want to play with Ms. Jelliroll. She’s got to hide before Mr. Grape-grabber finds her.”

“Okay. But come in soon. It’s getting too hot.”

Vicky didn’t answer. She was already lost in a fantasy with her dolls. Gia stood outside the playhouse and wondered if Vicky might be spending too much time alone here. There were no children around Sutton Square for her to play with, just her mother, an elderly aunt, and her books and dolls. Gia wanted to get Vicky back home and into a normal routine as soon as possible.

“Miss Gia?” It was Eunice calling from the back door. “Mrs. Paton says lunch will be early today because of your trip to the dress shop.”

Gia bit down on the middle knuckle of her right index finger, a gesture of frustration she had picked up from her grandmother many years ago.

The dress shop… the reception tonight… two places she most definitely did not want to go, but would have to because she had promised. She had to get out of here!

4

Joey Diaz placed the little bottle of green liquid on the table between them.

“Where’d you get ahold of this stuff, Jack?”

Jack was buying Joey a late lunch at a midtown Burger King. They had a corner booth; each was munching on a Whopper. Joey, a Filipino with a bad case of post-adolescent acne, was a contact Jack treasured. He worked in the city Health Department lab. In the past, Jack had used him mostly for information and for suggestions on how to bring down the wrath of the Health Department upon the heads of certain targets of his fix-it work. Yesterday was the first time he had asked Joey to run an analysis for him.