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have to get the managing editor to sign off, but fine with me.”
    “Thanks, I’ll do that.”
    “She got calls,” said Rook, “her Ledger extension forwarded to here.”
    “Oh, right, right.” Cecily looked around at the mess. “If you can find it, her answering machine has some nasty shit on it. She screened.” Nikki made a note to locate it and have the messages gone through for leads.
    “I know something else that’s missing,” said Rook. “No filing cabinets. She had big filing cabinets in the corner near the door.”
    The idea of a filing cabinet hadn’t occurred to Nikki. Not yet, anyway. Score one for Rook.
    “There should be two in there,” affirmed the assistant. She leaned forward in her chair to venture a look into the study but decided against it.
    Heat made a note about the AWOL filing cabinets. “Other things that might be helpful would be her appointments. I assume you have access to her Outlook calendar.” Cecily and Rook shared a look of amusement. “Am I missing something?”
    Rook said, “Cassidy Towne was a L uddite. Everything was on paper. Didn’t use a computer. Didn’t trust them. She said she liked their convenience, but it was too easy for someone to steal your material. E-mail forwards, hackers, what not.”
    “But I do have her planner.” The assistant opened her backpack and handed Nikki the spiral-bound datebook. “I have old ones, too. Cassidy had me hang on to them for documenting business meals and for tax prep.”
    Nikki looked up from a recent page. “There are two sets of handwriting in here.”
    “Right,” said the assistant. “Mine’s the one you can read.”
    “No kidding,” said Nikki as she turned pages. “I can’t make out her handwriting at all.”
    “Nobody could,” she said. “Just part of the joy of working for Cassidy Towne.”
    “She was tough?”
    “She was impossible. Four years of J-school to be the next Ann Curry, and where do I end up? Nanny to that thankless bitch.”
    Nikki was going to ask later, but with that opening, it seemed the perfect time. “Cecily, this is a routine question I ask everyone. Can you tell me where you were overnight, say between eleven P.M. and three A.M. ?”
    “In my apartment with my BlackBerry turned off so my boyfriend and I could get some sleep and without getting called by Her Highness.”
    On the short drive back to the precinct Nikki left voice mail for Don, her combat trainer, to rain check her busted morning jujitsu workout with him. The ex–Navy SEAL was probably in the showers by that time, no doubt having found another sparring partner. Don was a no strings, no worries guy. Same for their sex, when they had it. They both had no trouble finding other sparring partners there, either, and the no-strings relationship made for a mutually workable life design. If workable was your deal.
    She had taken a hiatus from sleeping with Don during the time she was with Rook. Not a decision she made, it just worked out that way. Don never seemed bothered, nor did he ask about it when they resumed their occasional night sessions when summer ended and Jameson Rook was out of her life.
    Now there he was again, Jameson Rook in her rearview mirror. Her ex-lover, riding shotgun with Raley, the two of them sitting wordlessly at the stoplight in the car behind her, looking out opposite windows of the unmarked like an old married couple with nothing more to say. Rook had asked to pool with Nikki back to the Twentieth, but when Ochoa said he wanted to accompany Cassidy Towne’s body down to the OCME, Heat told Raley to play chauffeur for the writer. Nobody seemed thrilled with the arrangements but Nikki.
    Her thoughts drifted to Ochoa. And Lauren. He fooled no one with his duty sense to stay close to the high-profile victim, calling it due diligence to see the delivery through from crime scene to morgue. Maybe she should butt out and leave Lauren to find her own way. When Ochoa had approached to suggest his plan,