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to Dart, he had not paid a speeding ticket in over five years. If James Bond had a license to kill, Bud Gorman had a license to drive.
    â€œAnd I tried to find you something, Joe. You gotta know that’s right—because I could hear it in your voice, and I can see it in your face now. And I feel like shit that I can’t help you, but that’s the way it is with some people.” He studied Dart’s disappointment. “If I had access to government entitlement programs, I have a hunch that’s where your Ms. Cole would be. And I do have some contacts over at IRS, though as you know, my gut take on this is that she’s not filing income anyway, so why use up our welcome over something like this? But it’s your call, I want you to know.”
    â€œNo credit history?” Dartelli was incredulous.
    â€œThat address is damn near in the projects, Joe. It’s not that surprising. Not really.”
    â€œI’ve lost her?”
    â€œMaybe, maybe not,” Gorman said, dragging a stout hand nervously over his shiny head. “Maybe not,” he repeated.
    â€œHelp me out here, Bud.”
    â€œInsurance,” the man said, speaking clearly. “Maybe she’s covered, maybe not, but if she is then she’ll be in the database, and her address will be current.”
    â€œHealth insurance?” Dartelli questioned.
    â€œFair odds that she’s covered, Joe.”
    â€œLousy odds,” Dartelli argued. “The David Stapletons of this world are the exact demographic that go without health insurance.”
    â€œShit, this is an insurance town, Joe. Everybody’s got some kind of coverage.”
    Dartelli knew it was true: Hartford people carried inordinate amounts of insurance, the same as Rochesterians used only Kodak film. But what this meant to Dartelli—what Gorman was suggesting—carried a personal agenda for the detective. The last thing that Dartelli wanted was to go hat in hand to Ginny Rice asking for favors. And she was the only insurance person that he could think of. I won’t do it, Dartelli promised himself.
    A promise broken with his next phone call.

CHAPTER 3
    By five o’clock on a hot August day, the Jennings Street booking room held an air of confusion: voices shouting; detainees complaining; attorneys arguing; parents protesting; police officers of every rank, dress, and both sexes attempting to manage the chaos. The special task force on gang violence had brought in twenty-three Hispanic teens for booking and questioning. Dartelli and others had been enlisted for the raid.
    The air-conditioning had failed two hours earlier. The air hung heavy with the tangy odor of perspiration and the deafening roar of constant cursing and swearing. The room, like the building, combined cream-colored cinder block walls with vinyl tiled floors in a urine white. The acoustic ceiling tiles were stained from the leaks that had been ongoing throughout the building for the past three years. The place reminded Dartelli of a cross between a post office and a prison. At the moment, it felt more like a high school principal’s office.
    Dartelli was consulting with a fellow detective on how to book one of the kids found in possession of a nine-inch switchblade. The two were speaking in normal voices despite the cacophony. He glanced up as a red file folder squirted between a pair of bodies, and he registered that this folder was directed at him. It shook, inviting him to take hold. And then he saw attached to the folder a graceful, feminine hand, and attached to this hand, an elegantly muscled and tan forearm covered in fine, sun-bleached hairs. Before he saw her face, he identified the voice of Abby Lang.
    â€œJoe? This is for you,” spoke that voice. The folder shook again. “We should talk.”
    He had never really looked at her arms before; he didn’t spend a lot of time looking at a person’s arms. But she had a nice