"Hey, Princess Lucy," Kovac said. "I need to speak with your mom in private. Why don't you go out in the hall with Officer Young, and he'll show you all the cool stuff on his belt. He'll show you how handcuffs work."

"I'm a fairy now, not a princess," Lucy informed him. She turned. "Can I, Mommy?"

"Sure, honey."

Lucy climbed down from the chair and went around the desk to Kovac and offered him her hand. By the look on his face, she could have been offering him a live snake.

"I'm not allowed to go places alone," Lucy said. "You have to take me."

Carey motioned to the door when Kovac looked to her.

"Uh . . . okay," he stammered, taking her small hand. He walked her out to hand her over to the care of Officer Young.

When he came back, he looked a little rattled, as if he didn't know what to do with the emotions Lucy had evoked in him. Murderers he could deal with. A five-year-old child undid him.

"Do you have children, Detective?"

He hesitated a beat before he answered. "No. I'm not married."

Not that one necessarily had anything to do with the other. Like eighty percent of the cops she knew, Kovac had probably been married and divorced at least once.

"She's a doll," he said.

"Thank you."

An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.

"I suppose you want to scold me for leaving my house," Carey said.

"I believe I did tell you to stay put."

"You can tell me anything you want."

"And you'll do whatever you d.a.m.n well please."

"Wouldn't you?"

He thought about that; then one corner of his mouth crooked up. "Point taken. You should sit down, though. You look a little pale."

"I look like something from a zombie movie."

"Well . . . yeah," Kovac conceded.

Carey eased herself down into her desk chair, glad for the soft padded leather. "So is this bad news, or are you just going to lecture me?"

Kovac sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and let go a sigh. "Well, yeah, I was gonna lecture you, but . . . what's the point?"

"I wouldn't have come here alone," Carey said. "I'm not that stupid woman in every suspense movie who has to go investigate the strange sounds in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

Once again he gave that little quarter of a smile that only touched one side of his mouth. He let his gaze wander around the room, seeming to not want to make eye contact with her unless he had the cop face on.

"This is a lot nicer than what the prosecutors get," he said. "You kicked a.s.s back then. Do you ever miss it?"

"Yes, sometimes," she admitted. "But this was what I always wanted to do."

"Because of your old man?"

"Yes. My idol," she said, looking away as the emotion threatened to surface again.

"He was a good judge. What's he doing in his retirement? Golfing in Arizona?"

"He's dying," she said. "He has Alzheimer's, and . . . he's dying."

"Oh, Jesus," Kovac muttered. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"I never miss an opportunity to stick my foot in it."

"You didn't know," Carey said. "Have there been any leads tracking down Stan Dempsey?"

Kovac shook his head. "No sign of him. No sign of his car."

"Has anyone called Kenny Scott? He has to be up there on Dempsey's. .h.i.t list."

"That's supposed to be happening."

"You didn't call him yourself?"

"Kenny Scott is not my priority," Kovac said. "I've got all I can handle with you."

Carey smiled a little and realized that she never made eye contact with him either in those moments when her guard slipped.

"Am I being difficult?"

He didn't answer right away. He studied her. She could feel his gaze on her. Finally, he said, "I think you're too brave for your own good. Why did you have to come here?"

"I wanted to get some paperwork to look at while I'm convalescing."

His sharp eyes swept over the desktop. "So where is it?"

"I forgot it's in my briefcase," she lied.

"You know, you're good," Kovac said. "But I'm better. Let's try this again, and maybe you can tell me the truth this time. Why did you have to come here?"

Carey looked down at the desk drawer where she had stashed her file on David's hobbies. She should probably have given it to him. But what was really in it? Evidence that her husband was unfaithful. Kovac already knew that. And the note--$25,000--could have been anything. Maybe David was thinking of buying a boat. Maybe twenty-five thousand dollars was the lottery prize that day. Maybe he was putting a down payment on a house for another one of his hooker girlfriends or for himself. Maybe he was thinking of moving out.

"I spoke with your husband's business a.s.sociates," Kovac said. "The people he had dinner with last night. A man named Edmund Ivors. Do you know him?"

"No. David doesn't include me in his business dealings."Or anything else, she thought.

"Does the name Ginnie Bird mean anything to you?"

"No. Why?"

"I think your husband is sleeping with her," he said bluntly. "Actually, I'm pretty sure of it."

Carey didn't say anything for a moment. Kovac let her process the information.

"I'm telling him I want a divorce," she said at last.

Kovac raised his brows. "Just like that? No 'Let's work this out'? No 'Let's go to counseling'?"

"Our marriage has been dying a slow death for a long time. There isn't anything left to work out except visitation rights."

"I'm sorry."

She almost laughed. "Why? You hate my husband. You can't believe I ever married him in the first place, let alone that I stayed with him all these years."

"I'm sorry for you," Kovac said softly. "I'm sorry you have to go through it. I'm sorry I had to tell you about the girlfriend."

Carey shook her head. "No. Don't be."

She stared down at the desk drawer, then finally pulled it open and took out the file. She handed it across the desk.

"What's this?"

"Evidence. I'll be using it in court."

Kovac paged through the contents. "How long have you been saving this up?"

"Since this morning. I did a little detective work of my own. He wasn't even bothering to hide it."

"That rotten, rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of a b.i.t.c.h," Kovac growled half under his breath as he looked at the hotel receipts and florist bills. He picked out the list of escort agencies and turned red with anger. If David had been there, Carey had little doubt that Kovac would have punched him in the face.

He pulled out a copy of several canceled checks made out to the property management company. "What are these for?"

"He's paying for an apartment," she said, and recited the address to him. "For himself or for one of his little playmates. I called the company this morning, pretending to be David's new accountant. I needed information. The last accountant left things in a terrible mess. Couldn't they help me out? All I needed was the address of the property."

"And they gave it up," Kovac said.

Carey nodded.

Kovac picked up the copy of the note regarding twenty-five thousand dollars. "What's this?"

"I don't know," she said softly. "It was in his wastebasket this morning."

"It's a payoff," he said.

"You don't know that. It could mean anything. A debt. Something related to his business. He's talked about buying a boat."

Everything she said sounded like an excuse. If she had been sitting in Kovac's place, she knew what she would have been thinking.

"In October?" Kovac said. "Who buys a boat right before winter?"

Carey didn't answer him.

"Carey . . ."

"David is a lot of things," she said softly, looking down at the desk. "But I can't believe he would do what you're suggesting."

"Before you found this stuff, would you have believed he was living a secret life? That he was cheating on you with prost.i.tutes every time you turned your back? That he would use your maiden name as his alias?"

She looked up at him, startled and hurt.

"You didn't know that part," Kovac said gently. "What else don't you know about him?"

What could she say? She was married to a stranger.

"Things weren't always like this between us," she said at last, feeling the need to justify having stayed in the marriage. "We were in love once. The last couple of years, we've grown apart. He's slowly become this bitter, unhappy person. I wanted just to gloss over it, to think he was frustrated with his lack of success. I didn't want to come down on him, because I knew his ego was fragile and my career was going so well."

She brushed a thumb beneath her eyes. "And there was Lucy. She loves her daddy. If nothing else, he's been a good father. He adores Lucy. The sun rises and sets on her.

"I didn't care that he didn't love me anymore. I had my career, my daughter. I could make that be enough."

She felt weak, was trembling ever so slightly. She didn't think she'd ever felt so defeated in her life. Kovac just sat there quietly, watching her with sympathy in his world-weary face.

"I'd like to go home now," Carey announced, pushing herself to her feet. "I need to rest up for the big scene."

"You're telling him tonight?" Kovac said, rising from his chair. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Why wait? I've waited too long as it is."

Kovac gently caught her by the arm as she came around the desk, headed for the door. His touch surprised her.

"I can be right there for you," he said, looking her straight in the eye.

And he meant it, Carey thought. This hardened street cop, who didn't even like her, would help her through this if she asked. And she had no doubt that he would follow through. That was who Sam Kovac was--blunt, honest, reliable--and not for any reason other than he simply believed that that was the right thing to do.

"I really don't want an audience," she said.

"I'll stay outside."

Carey shook her head. "I already have two officers sitting out front. David is as aware of them as I am. He wouldn't risk touching me. He has a whole other life to live for. I can guarantee you prison isn't on his agenda."

"I don't want you to be alone," Kovac said.

"Well, that's what I'll want to be--alone. Despite all recent evidence to the contrary, I prefer to cry in private."