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“About what?”

Willa was staring at me with a fearful look on her face.

“The phone is not a place to share secrets. Do you know Liberté Café on Hudson?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Meet me there at seven thirty tonight. I believe I can convince you of the need to keep this quiet.”

“I can’t make it till nine thirty,” I said. “Got a few important e-mails to catch up on.”

“Okay,” he said quickly, too quickly. “Nine thirty. I’ll see you then. How will I know you?”

“I’ll have a red pansy in my lapel,” I said before disconnecting the call.

When I returned the phone to the drawer Willa asked, “That was Mr. Braun?”

“It was.”

“You told him about what I said?”

“I sent him an e-mail informing him that I was Detective Tom Boll, private, and that I was working for certain concerned parties who wanted me to find Johanna Mudd. He knows that I know about the Free Man case, but that much is in the papers.”

“Did you say about him dropping the case?”

“No.”

She sighed.

“But he may suspect that I’m getting information from inside his office. So the best thing you can do is stay on the job. If anything comes up I need to know, I’ll give you another number you can call me on.”

The young lawyer gazed at me, realizing, for the first time I believed, how deep in shit she was.

She nodded and even forced a smile.

“I guess this is what I asked you for,” she said.

“You want we should drop it?”

She searched my eyes for the answer. After a good long time she said, “No. I never really knew how much a man can be a victim of the law until I met Manny. He’s a killer but he’s no criminal. I can’t turn my back on that.”

I gave Willa the number of another burner I owned and then showed her to the door.

I stood there staring at nothing after she’d gone.

“Did Mom do something to you?” Aja asked from behind me.

“Yes,” I said to the door.

“Did it have to do with me?”

I turned to look at my trench-coated blood. “She looked at my files.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can tell when people look at certain files,” I lied. “Files you never opened before.”

“That’s not really so bad, is it?” Aja asked.