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beetle-browed, broken nose. His hair is shaggy and his suits usually look too tight across the shoulder blades. He’s about five foot four and probably weighs two hundred and five. He lifts weights at the same gym I do and I see him in there doing squats with three hundred pounds of plates wobbling on either end of the bar like water buckets. He graduated summa cum laude from Stanford Law School and he wears silk shirts with his monogram on the cuff.
    Attorneys are the people who can say things in the mildest of tones that make you want to shriek and rend your clothes. Like doctors, they seem to feel obliged to acquaint you with the full extent of the horror you could face, given the current path your life is on. When I told him what was happening, he tossed out two possible additions to the allegation of insurance fraud: that I’d be named with Lance Wood as coconspirator, and charged as an aider and abettor to arson after the fact. And
that
was just what he came up with off the top of his head.
    I could feel myself pale. “I don’t want to hear this shit,” I said.
    He shrugged. “Well, it’s what I’d go for if I were D.A.,” he said offhandedly. “I could probably add a few counts once I had all the facts.”
    â€œFacts, my ass. I never saw Lance Wood before in my life.”
    â€œSure, but can you prove it?”
    â€œOf course not! How would I do that?”
    Lonnie sighed like he was going to hate to see me in a shapeless prison dress.
    â€œGoddamn it, Lonnie, how come the law always helps the other guy? I swear to God, every time I turn around, the bad guys win and the little guys bite the Big Wienie. What am I supposed to do?”
    He smiled. “It’s not as bad as all that,” he said. “My advice is to keep away from Lance Wood.”
    â€œHow? I can’t just sit back and see what happens next. I want to know who set me up.”
    â€œI never said you couldn’t look into it. You’re an investigator. Go investigate. But I’d be careful if I were you. Insurance fraud is bad enough. You don’t want to take the rap for something worse.”
    I was afraid to ask him what he meant.
    I went home and unloaded the boxes full of office files. I took a few minutes to reword the message on my answering machine at home. I put a call through to Jonah Robb in Missing Persons at the Santa Teresa Police Department. As a lady in distress, I don’t ordinarily call on men. I’ve been schooled in the notion that a woman, these days, saves herself, which I was willing to do if I could just figure out where to start.
    I’d met Jonah six months before while I was working on a case. Our paths had crossed more than once, most recently in my bed. He’s thirty-nine, blunt, nurturing, funny, confused, a tormented man with blue eyes, black hair, and a wife named Camilla who stalks out intermittently with his two little girls, whose names I repress. I had ignored the chemistry between us for as long as I could, too wise (said I) to get pulled into a dalliance with a married gent. And then one rainy night I’d run into him on my way home from a depressing interview with a hostile subject. Jonah and I started drinking margaritas in a bar near the beach. We danced to old Johnny Mathis tunes, talked, dancedagain, and ordered more drinks. Somewhere around “The Twelfth of Never,” I lost track of my resolve and took him home with me. I never could resist the lyrics on that one.
    We were currently at that stage in a new relationship where both parties are tentative, reluctant to presume, quick to feel injured, eager to know and be known as long as the true frailties of character are concealed. The risking felt good, and as a consequence the chemistry felt good, too. I smiled a lot when I thought of him and sometimes I laughed aloud, but the warmth was undercut by a curious pain. I’ve been married twice, done in more times than I