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matter how chic or secure Kate might appear.

    She studied the numbers again, but they didn’t mean much to her—a bank statement, that’s all.

    Kate dabbed her throat and wrists with Bal à Versailles, her mother’s scent, now hers, though it had taken her years to be able to wear it.

    A quick look in the full-length mirror confirmed to her that she looked okay.

    The truth—if you asked even the most casual observer—Kate was a knockout. She smoothed her hair, then headed down the hall past framed Mapplethorpe photos of sumptuous, erotic-looking flowers, past the eclectically decorated living room, where designer furniture and flea-market bric-a-brac coexisted perfectly. The walls were a mix of modern and contemporary paintings, with a couple of medieval artifacts that Richard was particularly proud to own displayed with a kind of studied nonchalance: one leaning on the mantel, the other on a side table beside a dozen art books, the cover of the top one sporting a Picasso self-portrait which happened to be hanging on the wall just above it.

    For a split second it made Kate sad. Paintings instead of family snapshots, artifacts rather than the baby pictures or formal shots of kids in caps and gowns she’d always imagined.

    Yes, they had tried. Over and over. Even going for in vitro fertilization. Nothing had worked. Of course they’d considered adopting, and probably would have if Kate hadn’t become so involved in Let There Be a Future, and all of those kids who needed her that came along with it. A blessing. Kate glanced at the wall of living room windows that displayed the park below better than any painting, her vision blurred. Tears? Kate swiped at them with the back of her hand. No way she would allow herself any self-pity. Not with her life, her luck. Ridiculous. Anyway, she’d gotten over the idea of having children of her own years ago. The fact was Let There Be a Future had supplied her with plenty of kids. So what if they weren’t her biological kids. They were all terrific, and they all needed her help.

    Kate turned away from the paintings and the spectacular view.

    At the front hall closet she reached for her jacket and stopped. For a moment she had the feeling that something terrible was about to happen—or already had and she just didn’t know it.

    She tried to shrug it off, thinking she was not so different from the mother she’d lost way too young—or every one of her Irish aunts who were forever crossing themselves and looking heavenward and saying Hail Marys, who were tied to every damn superstition known to mankind, and loving every one of them. Man, the fears those women had.

    No, Kate was not like them.

    She slid her arms into the sleeves of her jacket, pulled the collar to her neck.

    There it was again—not so much a chill as a sense of foreboding, nothing specific, but the kind of feeling she used to get all the time when she was a cop and things had gone really wrong.

    But she wasn’t a cop and nothing had gone wrong.

    Kate shook her head against the dread. She was late. That was all. She’d go to her luncheon, have her manicure, meet Nola for dinner, and everything would be fine. Just fine.

TWO
    F loyd Brown brought his unmarked NYPD Chevy Impala to an abrupt stop beside the three battered trash cans that no one seemed to use—the street, curb, everywhere was littered with garbage. It was one thing to have shit piling up in front of the run-down tenements that lined most of these streets, but in front of the police station? Brown made a feeble attempt to shove some of the debris closer to the bins with the side of his foot. Damn. Didn’t these cops have enough respect for the job to take a minute out of their precious day to clean up this mess?
    Nothing changes, thought Brown, as he mounted the pitted stone stairs of the Bronx precinct, his old station. Eight lonely years walking a beat. Until the year when he’d finally made detective. That’s what got him over to “the