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robbery. If anything more had been on the agenda, there hadn’t been time. Moore’s car alarm had gone off, and the mutt had run away with her wallet.
    Kovac looked over the top of the doctor’s head and into the examination room. Carey Moore was propped up on a hospital bed, looking like she’d gone five rounds with one big, badass dude. The bruises hadn’t turned blue yet, but Kovac had seen more than enough victims of beatings to read the damage and predict what would greet the vic in the mirror the next morning. There was a contusion on her forehead crowning a lump the size of a golf ball. One eye, the flesh around it already swollen, was going to turn black.
    A short line of stitches crawled over her swollen lower lip like a black ant. She had a cell phone pressed to one ear. Alerting the scavengers out in the waiting room, or complaining to the mayor how people weren’t safe on the streets, no thanks to her.
    He moved past the doctor without acknowledging her, walked up to Judge Moore, took the phone out of her hand, and clicked it off.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
    “I’ll need your undivided attention, Judge Moore. That is, if you want your assailant caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You might care about that more now than you did a couple of hours ago.”
    She snatched the phone back from him and turned it on, never taking her glare off his face. “I was on the line with my nanny, letting her know I’m going to be late and not to let my daughter see any news on television. I don’t want her to find out from strangers that her mother has been attacked.
    “I don’t care what you need, Detective Kovac,” she said. “You aren’t more important than my child.”
    Kovac arched a brow and took a step back. So much for her weakened physical state. She looked like a tigress ready to tear his throat out. “My mistake.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    She looked down then, touched a hand to her forehead, and winced as her fingers brushed against the angry red abrasion. Flesh v. Concrete.
    “I’m sorry, Anka. We got cut off. Please get Lucy in her pajamas and put a movie on for her.” She was silent for a moment, listening to the nanny. “Yes, all right. Put her on. . . . Hi, sweet pea,” she said softly, tears welling in her eyes.
    Kovac turned a little away from her in order to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping, even though he was.
    “No, honey, I won’t be home before you go to bed. I’m sorry. . . . I know I promised, but I had an accident and fell down, and I’m at the doctor now. . . .”
    She closed her eyes, and a couple of tears squeezed out from between her lashes. “No, honey, I don’t know what time Daddy will get home. . . . Why don’t you have a slumber party with Anka?”
    She touched a knuckle beneath the blackening eye to discreetly wipe away the tears.
    Kovac scowled and turned away completely. He didn’t want to feel sorry for Carey Moore. She was no friend to him, certainly no friend to Stan Dempsey, who would never be right again after working the Haas murders. He couldn’t even imagine what Wayne Haas and his son were feeling after hearing about the judge’s ruling against the prosecution. The last thing Kovac wanted was to feel sorry for her.
    “I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart. . . . I love you more. . . .” Her voice strained, she said good night and ended the call.
    Kovac waited. Liska joined him.
    “Did you make her cry?” she whispered, accusatory.
    “I didn’t do anything!”
    “And you wonder why you’re single.”
    “I know why I’m single,” he grumbled. “And I know why I’m going to stay that way.”
    “Let’s get this over with.” Judge Moore had her voice and her composure back.
    Kovac shrugged. Liska gave him a look of womanly disgust and pushed past him.
    “Judge Moore, I’m Detective Liska—”
    “I know who you are,” the judge said. “Can we cut to the chase, Detective? I want to go