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NEITHER ONE OF US is even considering sleep when we get back out to Long Island, so instead of my house Jimmy drives me to his bar, unlocks the front door, and makes coffee for the two of us.

“You need full-time security,” he says.

“No,” I say, “ you do. And maybe Ben. Or even Rip the dog. For reasons only Sonny knows, and maybe God Herself, Sonny wants Rob Jacobson to beat this rap. And he knows I’m still his best option to make that happen. The old bastard wants to torture me, not kill me.”

“Whoever this shooter is,” Jimmy says, “he’s very good.”

“And has done everything except hire a skywriter to let us know it’s the same guy doing all these killings.”

“Maybe he killed those two families for Sonny, too.”

“But why?” I ask.

“Like he ever needs a reason,” Jimmy says.

He tells me he could take a walk over to Jack’s and get us muffins.

I tell him I’m fine.

“Like hell you are,”

“I feel responsible,” I say. “So shoot me .”

“Cut the shit,” Jimmy says. “This was as inevitable as the freaking tide.”

“I should have taken Martin more seriously.”

“You didn’t take him seriously all the other times he was in over his head and he came to you for money,” Jimmy says. “Nobody shot him those times.”

He walks over and pours himself more coffee and comes back.

“This was payback for you putting Sonny on the stand, pure and simple,” Jimmy says. “It’s The Untouchables, for chrissakes. You send one of theirs to the hospital, they send one of yours to the morgue.”

“I’m worried about you,” I say.

“I can take care of myself.”

“You think you could find Sonny again if you had to?”

Jimmy grins. “Not in this life and not in the next one, either, that’s for shit sure.”

Jimmy says he can have some of his boys watch Ben without him knowing it and do it on Rob Jacobson’s dime.

We know we don’t have to worry about Brigid, at least for the time being.

She’s already back at the Meier Clinic, having been flown there by Jacobson, who explained the gesture by saying that he wanted to show that he did have feelings for her.

“And not just in my pants,” Rob Jacobson added, just so I wouldn’t forget who I was talking to, as if I ever could. In this life or the next one.

When we’ve finished with coffee, and Main Street is starting to come alive outside Jimmy’s front window, he drives me home.

Danny Esposito is sitting on my front steps when we get there, a tall to-go coffee from Brent’s in one hand, his phone in the other.

As we get closer to him, I see a thick, padded envelope next to him on the step.

“Brought you something,” Esposito says. “And sorry about your husband.”

“Ex,” I say. “How’d you know we’d be here?”

He grins. “I’m an ace detective,” he says. “Plus, I hacked into your phone.”

“Isn’t that against the law?”

“Not if you do it right,” he says.

He picks up the envelope now.

“You’re welcome,” Danny Esposito says. “I didn’t even make you two wait until Christmas.”

There’s a yearbook inside. Garden City High.

“All the time we’ve spent combing Morgan Carson’s social media, looking for anything that might help us,” he says. “And it turns out all we needed was in here the whole time. Old school. Her school.”

He’s bookmarked the page he wants me to see.

It’s Morgan’s personal yearbook page. More heartbreaking images from her too-short life.

Her on Halloween, dressed like Taylor Swift.

Her in her track uniform, arms up as she crosses a finish line, huge smile on her face.

Prom picture. Her in a bikini on the beach.

“This,” Danny Esposito says, his finger on the photo at the bottom of the page.

It’s Morgan at a football game, probably a Garden City High game, with some girlfriends, all of them mugging for the camera. All of them looking heartbreakingly young.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” I ask.

“Two rows behind her,” Esposito says.

And there it is.

Or, more accurately, there he is.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I say, and hand the yearbook to Jimmy.

Seated two rows behind Morgan Carson is Eric Jacobson.

JANE SMITH.

FOR THE DEFENSE.