tanding in the living room, waiting for CSU to arrive, McCord updated Womack and Shrader on the events of the last hour. The apartment door was open and uniformed officers were standing around in the foyer, so he kept his voice low, but Sam could still hear him as she sat on a sofa nearby, making notes for the report she would have to file.

In the middle of a sentence, McCord suddenly stopped talking, and Sam glanced up in time to see him pull his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. It was vibrating, and he glanced impatiently at the caller's name; then he swore under his breath and reached for the television's remote control lying on the coffee table near Sam's knee. As he flipped through the channels, he jerked his head toward the living room windows and said to Shrader, "What's the street look like down there?"

Shrader walked over to the windows and looked down. "It's a zoo," he replied. "Ambulances, cruisers, and dozens of—"

"—news vans," McCord concluded in disgust. "They must be running the story already, and Trumanti's calling me about it." As he said that, the television station he'd just tuned to interrupted its regular programming and an announcer said, "We have a late-breaking development in the Logan Manning murder. Our reporter, Jeff Corbitt, is at the scene now, where ambulances have just left the Fifth Avenue apartment building where Logan Manning once resided with his wife, actress Leigh Kendall. Jeff, what's going on over there?"

"It's pandemonium right now," the reporter on the scene replied, standing in front of the building, holding a microphone. "The police have the lobby and sidewalk roped off. Three ambulances just left a minute ago, and the street is full of emergency vehicles. Michael Valente was here, and he left in one of the ambulances."

"Was he in police custody?" the newscaster asked eagerly.

"No, he got into an ambulance with Mrs. Manning. It looks like Valente may have slipped through NYPD's net again, this time with Mitchell McCord in charge of the case. McCord is reportedly upstairs right now."

The news anchorman looked stunned and disgusted by the news that Valente had evidently been turned loose. "We've just heard from Police Commissioner Trumanti's office," he said, "and they assure us that Commissioner Trumanti will have an official statement for us shortly."

Sam's cell phone went off before the end of that news announcement, and so did Shrader's and Womack's.

"Don't answer those calls," McCord said sharply when Shrader started to answer his phone.

Shrader complied instantly, but looked worried. "My call's from Captain Holland."

"So's mine," Womack agreed.

Sam's phone was vibrating for the second time. "Mine, too," she said.

"Who's your other call from?" McCord asked her.

"My stepfather," Sam said wryly after glancing at her phone again.

"I'll return his call for you in a minute," McCord said. "He has a phone number I need." He held out his hand for her cell phone, and Sam got up and gave it to him; then he spoke to all three of them in a clipped, imperative voice. "I don't want any of you to return any phone calls about this case to anyone tonight. In a minute, I'm going to phone Mayor Edelman and try to persuade him to handle the press conference himself tonight and keep Trumanti out of it. Regardless of what Edelman says he's going to do, I'll make a brief statement to the press downstairs exonerating Valente from all involvement in Manning's murder. That should temporarily discourage Trumanti from addressing the media on his own tonight and trying to incriminate Valente anyway."

Sam realized at once that Edelman's phone number was the one Mack needed from her stepfather, and she would have been happy to call him for it in front of Shrader and Womack, but Mack was obviously intent on protecting his team right then. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and told them, "I'm going to fly solo on this case from now on. I want the three of you to stay clear of it. Tomorrow, write up your reports but stick to the bare facts and avoid any mention of the logic or reasoning you may have followed during the investigation. I directed your activities, so when you're questioned about why you did something, blame me."

"Why the hell should we worry about blaming anybody?" Shrader demanded. "We went by the book, we solved the case, and Sam saved the state a fortune in prosecuting and housing that crazy woman in the bedroom who killed Manning."

On the television set, the station broke again for the same news bulletin, and McCord picked up the remote control and pressed the off button. He tipped his head back, and Sam watched him carefully choose his phrasing. "In the course of the Manning murder investigation, I personally turned up a wealth of incontrovertible evidence that incriminates members of the NYPD in a long-standing, highly effective vendetta waged against Michael Valente using a variety of illegal measures." He looked down at them then and said bluntly, "I intend to take this evidence to the mayor, and if he doesn't act on it—publicly—then I will take it public, myself."

Shrader and Womack exchanged unhappy glances, and then Shrader spoke for both of them. "I don't like to see the department's dirty laundry hung out in public, Lieutenant. Why can't you let the department clean this up privately? Hand it over to Internal Affairs, or—"

"That's not an option," McCord informed him curtly. "Valente has been publicly victimized for decades by a high-ranking member of the NYPD and some of his cronies. When a private citizen becomes an intended victim of the department, then that's not an 'internal department affair' anymore—not to me. I want a little public justice here, and then I want a little public revenge. Valente's entitled to both."

"Who's the official?" Womack asked uneasily.

"Trumanti," McCord said flatly, after a pause.

"Oh, shit," Womack breathed. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

If anything, Womack's alarm only made Mack look more coldly resolute to Sam. He shrugged and said, "Mayor Edelman inherited Trumanti as commissioner, so he's not politically tied to him, but after I tell him what I know on the phone, our new mayor may still want to avoid a public scandal involving the NYPD. He may prefer to treat Trumanti's actions as internal police department business that should be dealt with privately. I'm fairly sure he'll demand Trumanti's immediate resignation, but I want more than that."

When he stopped there, Womack said, "Exactly, what is it you want?"

Mack looked at him as if the answer should have been obvious. "I want Trumanti's bare ass hung in public along with everyone who knowingly collaborated with that crazy, vindictive bastard."

"What, exactly, did Trumanti do?"

"You don't need to know that." He broke off because CSU was arriving, and he left Sam with Womack and Shrader while he went to talk to the head of the team.

"Okay, Littleton, let's hear it," Shrader demanded. "Womack and I have a right to know whatever you do. We have a right to know what we're up against."

Hesitating, Sam glanced out the window at the twinkling lights of the city's majestic skyline. She understood why Mack wanted to shield Womack and Shrader from the details, and she also understood why they felt they had a right to know them. The only thing she wasn't certain of was whether her decision to tell them sprang mostly from her conviction that Shrader and Womack were right—or whether she couldn't bear for them to think Mack's decision to go public was disloyal, unethical, or capricious. Since Mack hadn't specifically ordered her not to reveal the details, she told Womack and Shrader very quickly about Valente's unjust manslaughter conviction and everything that Trumanti engineered afterward. When she was finished, they both looked dazed and angry.

Unfortunately, when Mack returned to the group, he took one look at Shrader's and Womack's faces; then he looked straight at her. "You told them," he said, looking disgusted and disappointed in her.

Inwardly Sam flinched at his condemning expression, but she nodded. "They needed to understand where you're coming from."

Instead of replying, he looked harshly at all three of them. "Now that you all know the details, it doesn't change a goddamned thing. What I said before still goes. I don't need or want your loyalty; what I need is to know that you're out of the way when the battle begins. I want you to go about your business tomorrow, and I want you to keep your opinions about me, this case, and everything associated with it entirely to yourselves. Got that?" he demanded.

Shrader nodded reluctantly and so did Womack; then Mack's stabbing gaze swung to her. "That was an order I just gave you. Don't mistake it for a request!" he warned her, his jaw hardening.

Sam had absolutely no intention of following that order if she ever came to a point where she had to choose between loyalty to Mack and her job. Her career, she suddenly realized, was much less important than the ethics involved—and vastly less important than the ethical man she was in love with who was willing to stake everything on what he believed in.

"I won't mistake it," Sam replied quietly.

He nodded coolly, erroneously believing that having understood his order, Sam would follow it; then he said, "I'm going to phone the mayor. When the three of you leave here, you make no comment to the press."

He went into the kitchen and all three of them lingered for ten minutes, but Mack remained there, out of sight and hearing. Finally, Shrader said, "I had the distinct impression he wanted us to leave."

Sam had the same impression, but she would have liked to have stayed to hear what Edelman told him.

"C'mon, Littleton, it may take him an hour just to locate the mayor," Womack said when she hesitated in the foyer and cast an anxious look in the direction of the kitchen's empty doorway. "He's already royally pissed off at you. Let's get you out of here before he decides to bust you back to Patrol."

"I didn't think he was royally pissed off," Sam murmured uneasily as she paused outside the apartment door and stepped into her gray suede shoes. She sent a quelling glance at a fresh-faced young officer in the elevator foyer who was elbowing another officer, gesturing to her legs.

Womack watched her, but his thoughts were still on McCord's temper. "I'd say he was. In fact, I'd say the only thing that saved your ass was that you saved his ass in a shootout tonight."

"Nah," Shrader argued as they got into the elevator. "He wasn't as mad as all that; he's just focused. McCord's like a freight train right now, roaring down a mountain with no brakes, and Littleton just stepped a little too close to his tracks for a moment."

With Womack to one side of her and Shrader on the other, they shouldered their way through the throng of shouting reporters and blinding camera lights aimed at them outside the building.

Whether Mack was furious with her or not, Sam would have liked to find a way to wait there and watch him talk to the press. Most of all, she would have liked to have stood in the shadows somewhere, silently lending him her support. But whether Mack was simply "focused" or "royally pissed off," she decided it was probably wisest to do as he'd instructed this time, and go home. Whatever happened, she'd be able to watch it unfold on television.