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of the girls had as few as three diamonds. No one had more than five.
    The answer to the price mystery turned up on the “Services & Rates” page. Five diamonds represented “our most highly rated tier of model.” In other words, the most expensive girl. They even offered five-diamond packages. One hour with a five-diamond girl cost $4,000. A package of “three unrushed decadent hours over drinks and dessert” was $10,000. Another package, for “gentlemen with savoir faire,” offered a full night of “ultimate pampering.” That would set the discerning gentleman back $22,000.
    Heidi L’Amour did not come cheap.
    So this was the girl Justice Claflin had allegedly hired. I didn’t believe it.
    —
    Now I knew approximately what she looked like. Her GISS, at least. For half an hour I had been watching people come and go from the apartment building. If I saw anyone who vaguely resembled Kayla, I was ready to jump out of the car and approach her. But no one looked remotely like her. I was looking for a small, blond young woman of slight build. I saw a few guys in their early twenties, an elderly woman with a walker, a middle-aged woman with a few kids. But not her. If she were at home, she’d have to emerge eventually. But I could be sitting here in a rented car waiting for twenty-four hours, and I didn’t have the time.
    Besides, it wasn’t even a sure thing that she was at home.
    I decided to try the direct approach. I got out of the car and entered the lobby, which was large and garishly lit. It was lined with mailboxes on either side. Oversized envelopes, which didn’t fit in a mailbox, were lined up on a shelf.
    At the front was an intercom system where you searched for theresident’s name and it pulled up a number to punch in. I grabbed an envelope and searched the building directory until I found PITTS, K .
    I entered her number in the intercom and waited for it to ring. I could hear the ringing through a tinny speaker, but nothing more happened.
    After a minute, I rang again, and I waited some more.
    My plan, if she answered her door, was to tell her I was a courier with a package that required her signature. An old trick that usually worked. That would likely bring her downstairs, out of her apartment.
    But after five minutes of waiting, I began to believe that she wasn’t at home, and I started mulling over my options.
    Since I had her mobile phone number, there was an array of trickery at my disposal. More if I wanted to bring in Dorothy, but she was probably on a plane by now.
    There was an app on my iPhone—the kid at the Apple Store had “restored” to my new phone everything that had been on the stolen one, which I’d deactivated—that would enable me to “spoof” a number. That meant that when I called someone who had caller ID—and on cell phones, everyone does—they’d see that the call was coming from whichever number I chose.
    I could call or text her from the phone number belonging to Mandy Seeger, the Slander Sheet reporter. That number was on the note she’d sent to the Supreme Court’s public affairs office. It was a fair assumption that the reporter had been in close touch with Kayla over the past few weeks or so. They might have texted each other. A text from Mandy Seeger asking her to meet somewhere might bring her in from wherever she was.
    But that trick would only work so far. The moment she texted the reporter back and reached the real person, the ruse would be over.
What are you talking about?
I didn’t ask you to meet!
Mandy would reply.
    So . . . there was a variation on that trick that might work a little better.
    Another app on my iPhone called Burner would give me a temporary phone number in almost any area code I chose (except, for some reason, New York’s 212 area code) that I could use to call or text her. She could call or text me back on the same number and reach me without ever seeing my real phone number, which had a 617 area code, for Boston. I needed a