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proud.”
    Making Michael Kidder proud wasn’t high on my to-do list, but I certainly planned to do a good job putting Redekov away. I could sense that it was time for me to leave Lippincott’s office. I was surprised to still be lead counsel for the trial, but I managed to collect myself enough to say, “I, uh, well, I want you to know that, I think…I mean, I know…that I won’t let you down.”
    My cheeks suddenly felt very hot, like I’d opened an oven door to check on some brownies. I’m sure I turned an alarming shade of red. Boy, if Vasily Redekov’s lawyers could only have heard me then, they’d have been shaking in their size-eleven Bruno Maglis.
    Lippincott nodded. “I know you won’t,” he said, though he looked slightly uncertain. This, of course, did wonders for my confidence. I muttered something I hoped sounded reassuring and left his office. I think I even stumbled on the corner of an ornate Persian rug near the door on my way out. I was one smooth fella.
     
    * * *
     
    “It has to be because you’re sleeping with his daughter,” Angel said as he stood again at my office door.
    I gave him my best steely-eyed stare—which, to my knowledge, has never intimidated anyone—and said, “First of all, I’m not just ‘sleeping’ with her, Angel. And second, that’s not the reason I’m still lead counsel.”
    “Well, if that’s not it, as you say, there has to be another explanation.”
    “I’m partial to the theory that he thinks I’m the best lawyer for the job.”
    Angel rubbed his chin. “No, that can’t be it. Hey, you’re not sleeping with him, too, are you?”
    Angel’s quick. He had to be, or the ruler I threw at him from my desk would have nailed him in the forehead before he ducked. As it was, it sailed over him and bounced off the desk of my assistant, Patty, who paused in her telephone conversation long enough to give me an icy glare. I smiled weakly at her before Angel straightened up again, which, thankfully, blocked me from Patty’s view.
    “Today’s Thursday, Angel,” I said. “No court tomorrow. So have your fun now, because I have until Monday to get my head back in the game, which I’m going to do over the weekend, and then, starting first thing next week, I’m going to work you like a Roman galley slave.”
    He narrowed his eyes at me and seemed to be trying to come up with an adequate response. Then he sighed in defeat. “I don’t suppose Lippincott’s got any other daughters, has he?” I shook my head. “And sleeping with his wife wouldn’t get me anywhere, I guess.”
    “His wife is dead, Angel.”
    “Well, then, I refuse to sleep with her. I’ve got my standards. What about Kidder?”
    “What about him?”
    “He married?”
    “You interested in him or his wife?”
    “Who’s prettier?”
    “I met her once. It’s a toss-up.” I smiled.
    He shook his head and walked away. The instant he was gone, so was my smile. “Thanks, Wiley,” the homeless guy had said.

 
     
     
     
    FOUR
     
    The more I thought about the homeless man in the Harvard sweatshirt, the more I realized he couldn’t have been Jake. Any similarities I’d seen were the result of my mind seeing what it wanted so badly to see. If it had been Jake, why wouldn’t he have just identified himself and spoken to me? Why drop a hint then disappear? It didn’t make sense. I was imagining things.
    Wasn’t I?
    I didn’t know. I wanted so desperately to find Jake, and to find him alive, that I was ready to believe anything. Maybe what Jessica told me for years before I finally started to listen to her was true: my obsession about Jake’s disappearance wasn’t healthy.
    But I think it was understandable. There was a time in my life when Jake was all I had in the world. He was my only sibling and, for most of my life, my only family. I worshipped him.
    My parents had Jake when they were in their midtwenties. I was an accident that happened eleven years later, though Jake assured me