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beat. “No one’s as fit as you,
Your Honor.”
    Corny, Ellie thought, but what was the right
response to that question, under the circumstances?
    “And what do you, Mr. Donovan, think about your
witness’s attire today?”
    “Your Honor?” Donovan asked.
    “Off the record for a moment,” he said to the court
reporter. “Only five visits to the courthouse and yet I remembered this witness.
And let’s be clear here. We all know what it is about her that would have stood
out in my recollection. And now here she is in these butch pants—trousers, let’s
say.”
    Part of Ellie wanted to tell this man that beneath
her simple gray flat-front pants she wore a black thong bikini, but she dressed
for court this way for a reason. She dressed this way because most judges and
jurors had expectations. And they weren’t the same as Knight’s expectations.
    Knight wasn’t interested in her inner monologue. He
was on his own roll.
    “When I first joined the bench, I heralded the
first wave of lady litigators. They always wore skirts. High heels. Silk
blouses. And then came the menswear trend, and these women started showing up in
trousers and oxford shirts. Now the gals have it back to the way it was.
Dresses. Skirts. Legs. Heels. Except for you, Officer. Hatcher, you said? You’ve
got your best assets covered up. You look like a boy. Not to mention, my clerk
tells me that you and Donovan here are quite the item. I mean, what if Donovan
showed up here tomorrow in a dress? How would you feel about that?”
    She saw Max looking at her. Willing her. Begging
her. Don’t. Do. It.
    “I would like to see that, Your Honor. But ADA
Donovan was just telling me he wore out his best red silk number modeling it for
you.”
    M ax was doing his best in the hallway to appear
annoyed, but he couldn’t help breaking a smile.
    “Red silk? Really? Seems a little
hoochie-momma.”
    “Oh, you’d be much classier as a lady fella, I’m
sure. Brooks Brothers. Burberry. All those blue-blood labels. Sorry, I sort of
lost it with the Big Pig.”
    “Whatever. The motion’s a slam dunk. Even the
defendant’s own allegations make clear he was playing the grieving boyfriend at
the start. Besides, there’s no way for the state not to be all right with Knight. He sides with the prosecution like he’s on
autopilot. I could tell him the court should enter an official finding of alien
invasion, and he’d do exactly as I said.”
    “I’m praying I’ll still get home at some reasonable
hour tonight. You?”
    He let one hand wander to her waist. “As soon as
I’m done here, I have to go out to Rikers. Gang shooting. Guess a few weeks in a
cell has someone second-guessing his loyalty to a coconspirator. I’ve got to
hammer out the cooperation details.”
    “Could the good citizens of New York please stop
fucking killing each other for a night?”
    “Do you at least have time for that lunch? I’ve got
a few minutes.”
    “Depends. You still got that red silk dress?”
    “Those pants are a
little butch.”
    “Not underneath,” she said. He returned her smile.
When her cell phone buzzed at her waist, she tensed up at the sight of Rogan’s
name on the screen. He had predicted a shitstorm to follow their walking away
from the Whitmires’ townhouse. Apparently it had taken little more than an hour
for Julia’s parents to work their way through their network back to her cell
phone.
    She held up a finger while she took the call.
“Yeah?”
    “We shouldn’t have left. You
told me yourself Donovan didn’t really need your testimony.”
    “I take it Tucker tore you a new one?”
    “It’s not just the Lou. We
should have at least gone through the motions. Like I said: Protect the
crime scene, talk to the friends, do what we do.”
    “Like I said, it’s a
waste of time.”
    “That’s why I let you convince
me to leave. But we screwed up.”
    “And how exactly did we do that?”
    “I’ll tell you when I get
there. Meet me out on Centre