The car’s tires bounced up over the curb. She scrambled on hands and knees out of the direct path and almost made it. The right front fender clipped her ankle, spinning her body like a toy on a string. A street sign that declared no parking here to corner stopped her. Then the car was gone, swerving across lanes and out of sight.

Through the cacophony of the racing engine, squealing tires, car horns, and his own scream of “Nooo!” Ted was sure he heard Kenzie’s head smack against the pavement. He ran to her and dropped to his knees. She was moaning loudly. That was good. She was alive. Her eyes were open but unseeing. Blood was seeping out from beneath the wig. Rain pelted her face and those open eyes, but she made no move to cover herself. She was both wide awake and unconscious. Ted put one hand over her face and with the other dug into his pocket for his cell phone.

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The jurisdictional issues slowed the early hours of the investigation. Nobody wanted it. The incident referred to as a carjacking by Nassau County Police took place at the steak house in their jurisdiction. The attempted vehicular homicide, as it was identified by New York’s finest, had clearly been in Queens. With Lester’s words regarding outer-borough hospitals in mind, Ted demanded that Kenzie be taken to a Nassau County hospital, further complicating matters. One of Cheryl’s hundred-dollar bills slipped to the EMTs resolved the issue of where to take her. The two NYPD detectives argued that the victim was no longer in their jurisdiction. The Nassau cops countered that the more serious crime had occurred on the other side of the county line. Ted wanted to leave and check on Kenzie.

Cops from both sides questioned what witnesses they could find.

The heavyset waiter reported that the couple had been arguing at the table and had left without finishing their meal. The hostess, who had barely acknowledged Ted when they arrived, remembered the woman running out alone. The maître d’ thought the man had been wild-eyed and aggressive. The valet parking attendant had seen the man chasing the woman and yelling at her. No, he didn’t know what the man had been saying, but he’d sounded angry. Or frightened maybe. And, no again, the attendant couldn’t remember a thing about the two guys who stole the car, despite having handed one of them the keys to the BMW while standing under the full glare of the overhead light above the entrance. Ted, still nursing bruises from his previous encounter and now with new scrapes and dents, understood the man’s selective memory and forgave it. Bad things happened to people who remembered too much.