Hardy, going for the Academy Award for Best Actor, conveyed that he wasn't happy about what had taken place with his wife, but he was no longer worried. Everything was under control. 'I'm going down to pick her up right now,' he said.

'Well, then, you mustn't let me keep you. G.o.d speed.'

Hardy walked across the parking lot and stopped by the door to his car. Back toward the school, cars were still pulling up and letting out other children. The fog, he realized, had only made a token effort this morning, and now there was even a hint of sunshine in the sky. He made out a small knot of kids standing by a bicycle rack, his daughter was among them. And Ca.s.sandra Beaumont.

Hidden in plain sight.

38.

An objective observer would have concluded that the two men standing on the curb of Church Street were business a.s.sociates working out some tedious details in their latest deal. Both were close to the same age, in good physical shape, and conservatively dressed in business suits - one of them an Italian double-breasted with a deep olive tone, the other a Brooks Brothers charcoal with a microscopic maroon pinstripe.

A closer look would uncover a different truth. Both of the strong, perhaps even handsome faces were landscapes of strain and fatigue. And the deal was not going well.

Listen: 'I want to see her.'

'Not until after you've testified.'

'How's this? I won't testify until I do.'

Pin-stripe smiled coldly. 'Maybe you're forgetting that I've still got her. It's pretty straightforward. You want to get your daughter back, I want my wife. We trade. That's the deal. That's the only deal.'

'You son of a b.i.t.c.h.'

'Maybe. But at least an honest son of a b.i.t.c.h.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means I haven't lied to you.'

'As though I have?'

'Do you think I'm an idiot? Are you telling me you wouldn't have packed them both up and been gone when I got here this morning?' A pause. 'That's what I thought, so don't s.h.i.t me. I did what I had to do. Your daughter's safe.'

'Except for the trauma you've-'

'Not even that. She's not even going to know any of this happened. Not unless you force me.'

The Italian suit walked off a few steps and the other followed.

'I'm the only friend you've got. Don't you understand that by now? n.o.body's going to touch you until you tell your story.'

He whirled around. 'And after that?'

'After that, if you're telling the truth, you've got nothing to worry about.'

'If I'm telling the truth? I am telling the truth.'

A long silence. Finally the man in pin-stripes stepped off the curb, around to the driver's side door of a late model Honda. 'Get in the car.'

With over an hour to kill before Marian Braun's courtroom was called into session, Hardy didn't want to push his luck by entering the Hall of Justice. If he and his prisoner should run across Scott Randall or Peter Struler, he considered it a dead certainty that somehow they would get Ron into custody. Hardy would be powerless to stop them if they initiated the booking process under whatever guise.

Lou the Greek's was dark and private enough. Few if any of the morning drinkers were going to look up and recognize anybody. Most of them had personal, more desperate agendas of their own for being there at that hour and one of them - David Freeman - was working. He was on the first stool at the end of the bar, just as he and Hardy had decided the night before.

A couple of steaming mugs of coffee rested untouched on the table between Ron and Hardy.

'Rita Browning? Where did you get that?' Ron was shaking his head, apparently mystified. He faced the back wall in the farthest booth from the front door. 'No,' he said.

Hardy was across from him, where he could see anyone who entered. 'You're asking me to believe she wasn't one of your credit card names?'

'I don't care what you believe, but that's right. Rita Browning?' There wasn't any humor in the moment, but Ron almost chuckled. 'Look, I might not be the most masculine guy in the world, but do you really think I could pa.s.s as a Rita Browning?'

This, Hardy had to say, was a reasonable point.

Ron amplified it. 'And what was I supposed to use it for?'

'To pay the mortgage on another apartment in your building.'

An expression of apparently real perplexity. 'Which one?'

'Nine oh two.'

Ron thought about it for second, and finally reached for one of the coffee mugs and took a sip. 'And why would I want to do that - have another apartment in my own building?'

It was a good question, but Hardy believed he had a good answer. 'So if you had a problem just like the one you're experiencing now, you'd have a place to hide out for a while, to take the kids until you could relocate.'

'Well, as you say, I'm having this problem now. You'll notice I didn't take them there. Doesn't that tell you anything?'

Hardy hated to acknowledge it, but it did.

'This is G.o.d's truth. I've never heard of Rita Browning in my life. She owns nine oh two?'

'Maybe. That's the name on the mailbox, on her checks. David Glenn - your supe? - he says he's never seen her.'

'How long has she been there?'

'Five years, a couple of months longer than you have as a matter of fact.'

'David came on after us,' Ron said helpfully. 'A couple of years later, I think. It's not impossible, I suppose, that he hasn't met her... She makes her mortgage payments for the year every January.'

'For the year?' Ron went quiet while he considered this. 'You think I've been paying for two apartments in that building for five years?'

'Let's say I don't think there's a Rita Browning. All your aka's have the initials RB-'

'Yeah, but I'll tell you something about those accounts, those lines of credit. If you studied them at all, you realized I never carried any balance in them. They were in case things here went to h.e.l.l. A thirty-day parachute, maybe forty-five, to give me time to start out someplace else. That's all. Just out of curiosity, though, how in the world did you find out about those?'

'Bree's files from Caloco. Somebody over there shipped them to the DA to make it look like you'd premeditated this and planned your escape.' Hardy noted Ron's reaction - unfeigned, frightened. 'I didn't see any Rita Browning in those records, it's true. But I don't think anyone's living in nine oh two.'

'Can you find out? Have somebody check it?'

'Sure, eventually. With a warrant. They could take the place apart and might get lucky if that's where Bree... if that's where it happened. But any of that will take time and' - Hardy consulted his watch - 'that's in short supply right about now. We're in court in forty-five minutes.'

Ron swirled his mug a couple of times. His eyes met Hardy's. 'Bree,' he said.

'That's what I'm thinking.'

'She set up my accounts for me. It would have been cake to do one for herself.'

'Even if this one wasn't a credit card?'

Ron lifted his shoulders. 'Same thing, basically. Bogus numbers, false ident.i.ty. There's nothing simpler, especially if your base account is a trillion-dollar multinational like Caloco. Banks are lining up to help you out.'

'But what would she have needed another apartment for?'

The answer came to both of them as Ron spoke. 'Love.'

'She met men there?'

'Why not? It's perfect when I think about it - discreet, close by, no ha.s.sles...'

'But for this, for the mortgage, there had to be real money somewhere. Did Bree make enough-'

Ron was saying no before Hardy finished. 'Up until this year, she made a lot, but not enough for that.'

'How much would it be?'

'In our building, the one-bedrooms go for like four fifty. Our place was seven and a half.'

Hardy whistled.

'Tell me about it. But she got enough bonuses to just cover us.' He hesitated. 'We're still house poor, to tell you the truth. And after she left Caloco...' He stopped, and stalled with the coffee. 'You might as well know. Maybe you do already. We were going to have to move.'

'And did you fight about that?'

Ron sighed wearily. 'I'll tell you, by the end, we fought about everything. It was terrible.' He hung his head for a long moment, then looked up. 'I'm just so tired.' His voice was almost gone. 'So incredibly tired.'

Hardy leaned over the table. 'Did you kill her, Ron? Did you kill Bree, maybe by mistake?'

Ron raised his head, his eyes reflecting the depth of his resignation and loss. 'You know, I didn't. She was my sister. I loved her. The kids loved her - she was their mother. I never would have even hit her, much less killed her. I didn't kill her. I really didn't. Even by mistake.' His hands imploringly crossed the table. 'I wasn't even there. I wasn't even there.'

Even with Freeman making sure at the bar, it made Hardy nervous as h.e.l.l to leave Ron alone at the Greek's. He told him to have himself another cup of coffee or something and be at the back door to the Hall, by the entrance to the jail, at nine twenty. Hardy was marginally confident that he'd boxed him in adequately. Having come this far, with Ca.s.sandra held hostage, Ron wouldn't run now.

He hoped.

It was unusual, but Hardy had persuaded Glitsky to use some juice with the bailiffs so that they would allow Frannie to wear a respectable outfit for the hearing. So he had to get it delivered to her in time for her to change from her jumpsuit. Protocol, appearances, details.

But he couldn't have it both ways. She could take the time to change into pleasant civilian clothes that would subliminally humanize her to Marian Braun, or they could take a last few tense, private moments together in the attorney's visiting room.

There was no choice. After she was free, they'd have time to visit. Time for everything.

It left him with nearly a half hour and he was tempted to go back to Lou's and sit with Ron. But no. He'd worked that through. Ron would be at the back door at the appointed time. He had no other option.

Setting his heavy briefcase on the hard wooden bench just inside the entrance to the jail, he once again unsnapped the clasps, once again lifted his pages into his lap. He'd been through every sc.r.a.p he carried at least once, except the final pages that Glitsky had delivered last night.

But now, unexpectedly, maybe he had just enough time to get through the rest of it - not that he thought he would discover anything. But if nothing else, he prided himself on his thoroughness. He wouldn't lose this thing out of sloppiness or fatigue. He would be prepared for his hearing when he walked into the courtroom. Scott Randall wasn't going to surprise him with something he should have read, should have noticed, should have figured out.

So he started where he'd left off- Canetta's autopsy.

And this time, he saw it. Went back and reviewed Griffin. Crossed the corridor to the coroner's and made sure. And then, finally, knowing where else to look, went back and found it.

Glitsky was in his office when Hardy called upstairs. He had sent his task forces out on Thorne's search warrant, which left him free until after the hearing, which he would be attending. Hardy didn't want to say anything over the phone. He'd see Glitsky in five minutes and if they could get any privacy, he'd tell him then. In the meanwhile, they'd meet at the back door to the Hall.

As Hardy came out of the jail, he gave a surrept.i.tious nod to Freeman, now loitering in the corridor that led to the morgue, and continued to the employees' back door to the Hall. The plan was that Ron and Hardy were going to take the little-used rear stairway to the second floor and make a break for Braun's courtroom, Department 24, when they got out into the hallway.

Glitsky opened the door for them. When Hardy introduced who they would be escorting, however, he could tell that it wasn't a pleasant surprise. But the lieutenant seemed to accept the situation, silently leading the way up the stairs until they reached the landing before the door into the main hallway. When they got there, though, he turned and faced them both. 'You guys just run into each other out front? Was that it?'

'Not exactly.' Unruffled, Hardy had guessed this moment was coming. He was ready. 'This time yesterday I had no idea where he was.'

'How about when I came to your office last night as a courtesy? The last time we talked, say?'

'Was he a suspect then?'

'Close enough, and you...'

'By the time you left, though? Honestly?'

The scar was tight on Glitsky's face, but Hardy had him. He kept pushing. 'OK, he's not a suspect. Had you ever seen him before now, a minute ago? Talked to him?'

'You know I haven't,' he growled.

'Right. Listen to me. And you had no idea that I had had any communication with him, ever, did you?'

'So what?'

'So when our dear pal Scott Randall asks you, maybe under oath, whether you have colluded with me and/or Ron here in any way, what are you going to be able to say?'

A vein stood out on the side of Glitsky's forehead, but gradually his expression relaxed, though not quite into calm serenity. 'For the record, I still don't like it.'

'OK, noted,' Hardy responded crisply. 'But also for the record, you're going to thank me.'

Glitsky glared another second or two, then turned and pulled open the door. The three men stepped out into the open hallway together just as Randall, Struler, Pratt, and several of her minions rounded the corner from the elevator in a phalanx. The two groups nearly ran into one another.