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“Why have you been keeping us away from Sparks?”

“I haven’t—”

“You’ve got to give me some credit, too. We came to you on Thursday saying we wanted to look at Sparks again, and by Friday, we’re chasing the Megan Gunther callout.”

“At first, the Sparks angle looked like a waste of time. And the Gunther case really was up your alley.”

“And what about your comments? About me? Wunderkind, darling of the brass, promoted too early. Pretty strong hints as to what you think about me.”

“I’m what my sister calls a strong personality. You shouldn’t take it personally.”

Ellie looked at the floor and decided there was no need to respond. She had just risen from her chair when Tucker stopped her. “I can’t show you favoritism.”

“Excuse me?”

Tucker looked to the sealed blinds that covered the glass between her office and the squad room. “I can’t appear to favor you. With them. I’m new around here, but I’ve done this before, first as a sergeant and now as a lou. I know how it works. You think I don’t know what goes through their heads when they find out their new boss Robin Tucker isn’t a guy with a gender-ambiguous name? Bitch. Dyke. Affirmative action. I’ve heard it all, but I know how to get past it. It’s all about competence. And I’m good at my job, Hatcher. And despite some of the shit I’ve given you, I know you are, too. You fucking earned that Police Combat Cross. But if they think I favor you over them, we’re both toast. Is that any better of an explanation?”

Ellie nodded, looking up from the linoleum long enough to catch Tucker’s eye. “Thanks.”

“Now, if we’re all through with the girl talk, I’d suggest you get yourself some rest.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

6:00 P.M.

Stacy Schecter was wearing new shoes, or at least new to her.

She had spotted the black Christian Louboutin slingbacks last week at Housing Works. She’d found some funky vintage bargains before at her favorite used clothing haunt, but she rarely had the kind of luck to come across anything by an in-demand contemporary designer in like-new condition. Even though they might have been a half size too large for her feet, she nevertheless swept up the three-inch pumps as too good a find to pass up. The shoes might not appeal to Stacy the artist, but they suited Stacy the Honest and Attractive Brunette just fine.

As she made her way west on Twelfth Street, she was cautious with her steps, mindful of the height of her heels and the looseness of the straps behind her ankles. At the same time, she was aware of the minutes passing on the clock and knew she couldn’t squander them.

Ideally she should have left her apartment earlier. She liked to arrive at the meeting locations well before the clients. The extra time allowed her to still her mind and get into character. It also permitted her to watch the man arrive. Make sure he was on his own, no backup officers monitoring the conversation. No one waiting to bust her once they’d struck the agreement of sex for money.

But tonight she’d continued painting long past the moment she should have begun preparing for her date, and now she was running late. She suppressed the urge to linger at the bargain shelves outside the Strand Bookstore and scurried across Broadway against the light, provoking a honk from a passing cab.

She was only one block from her destination and her mind was still back in the apartment. She’d been working on the piece she had tentatively entitled Katie Was Miranda. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so confident. Somewhere along the way, she had transitioned from a college student who truly believed she would be the next Lee Krasner or Agnes Martin to an artist who chose palette colors based on the latest trends in yuppie home decor. Her painting no longer had anything to do with her. She had stopped painting for herself entirely.

But her portrayal of Miranda/Katie was different. Some artists painted what they saw in life. It had been a long time since she had attempted even to do that. But with this piece, she was going further, painting not what she saw in those photographs of Miranda, but what she felt when she saw them. She had no idea whether anyone would enjoy the piece, or admire it, or even lay eyes on it for that matter.

All she knew was that she had to finish. Every stroke of the brush against the canvas was like its own kind of bloodletting. For the first time in years, her art was personal. It was art. And she wasn’t going to stop with Miranda/Katie. She was carrying other images in her head—of absence and longing, of love and violence, of masked male faces and exposed female bodies. She finally felt inspiration for a series. If she was going to make her money with her body, she might as well make her art count for something. She’d roll the dice and see what happened. Maybe she’d be the only person ever to see it. Or maybe these would be the paintings that would change her life.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

6:00 P.M.

Ellie woke up knowing that something had happened. She knew it not in the way you know the multiplication tables, or the identity of the first president, or the capitals of the fifty states, or anything else learned through study or cognition. She knew it in the way you immediately recognize the smile of a long-lost friend, even before you’ve placed the face within your past. She knew it in the way you sense the onset of a cold, even before you have any tangible symptoms. She knew it not just with her mind, but with her stomach and her heart and her blood and her soul.

She woke up knowing at a base, cellular level that something had happened. Rogan had lost Spark’s trail, or had seen something but failed to recognize the significance. Something.

She reached for her cell phone on the nightstand. No new calls registered on the screen. She pulled up the digest of recent calls to make sure. Nothing. But the fact that she hadn’t missed a call did not put to rest the anxiety coursing through her body. Something had happened, and she had slept through it.

The intensity of her agitation was momentarily disrupted by the tickle of a fingertip meandering near her right hip, across the faded appendectomy scar, then up toward her navel.

“You’re awake.” Max brushed her hair back and kissed her just below her earlobe.

“This time it might actually be for good.”

She had called him from the precinct to say she’d been sent home for the day and would be working at night instead. She’d been home only forty minutes when he showed up at her apartment. Now the sun was less bright through the bedroom window blinds, and the cacophony of running engines and car horns below told her that evening commuters were lined up outside the Midtown Tunnel.

Except for a brief traipse to the front door for their delivery tacos, they had spent the last seven hours in her bed, alternating between sleep, naughty stuff, and snippets of 30 Rock online. Based on the tickle of Max’s index finger around her belly button and the warmth of his breath against her neck, he wasn’t asleep and had no intentions of watching another sitcom.

“Is everything all right?”

“I want it to be. I hope it is.”

“El, I know you have this borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes you grind away at a case until all the layers are gone and you can clear the thing from your whiteboard, but even crazy Howard Hughes occasionally let himself sleep. Since the second you left Bandon’s courtroom in handcuffs, all you’ve done is live and breathe this case—nonstop, jumping from one body to the next, searching for one theory that might connect them. That’s got to feel like a nonstop roller coaster, and now that you’ve stepped away from it, you probably feel like it’s