Jonathan and Kathleen arrive in the law school classroom together, followed by Lovely five minutes later. She’s dressed in a leopard-print sports bra and matching skintight shorts, exposing a bare midriff. Wisps of hair have escaped from the band around her ponytail. She’s been working out at the school gym, and her skin glistens with sweat. She looks terrific. I presume that the stories about her porn career have already hit the Internet. Her choice of wardrobe reflects her usual in-your-face attitude.

“Sorry to impose on your Saturday evening,” I say. “I hope you didn’t have plans.”

“A girl like me always has plans,” she says in a steamy voice.

Jonathan chortles. Kathleen slaps his arm. Lovely must be the talk of the law school. I wish I could protect her from all that. Thankfully, the semester will end in a couple of weeks and she can get away from here.

“We had a bad day in court yesterday,” I say. “But I have something important to show you that might turn that around.” I project a PowerPoint slide on the classroom monitor. “This is a document reflecting a five hundred thousand dollar wire transfer on May 2, 2011, from The Emery Group to a man named Delwyn Bennett. He happens to be Representative Lake Knolls’s chief of staff.”

Lovely’s jaw drops. This document confirms the information that Ed Diamond got from his underworld sources about the payment to Bennett. When Jonathan and Kathleen start peppering me with questions, Lovely and I act as if we only learned about this payment today.

“Where did you get this document?” Jonathan asks. “Did Frantz finally—?”

“I didn’t get this from Frantz. But let’s just see if we can figure out what this payment was for.” I project the next slide. “This is Christopher McCarthy’s itinerary for his vacation in May and June of last year. I think the trip is related to The Emery Group’s payment to Bennett.”

“How do you know that?” Kathleen asks.

“I just do,” I say, annoyed at her perfectly appropriate question. “Now, let’s focus on the merits.”

The slide reads: Sunday May 22, 2011—Bratislava; Wednesday May 25, 2011—Sofia; Friday May 27, 2011—Chisinau; Saturday May 28, 2011—Helsinki; Tuesday May 31, 2011—Paris; and then a flight back to Los Angeles on June 15.

“Any ideas about what to make of this?” I ask. “Because I don’t.”

“He likes Paris better than those other cities?” Jonathan says. “I know I would.”

I glare at him. I’m in no mood for class clowning.

There’s a long lull while we stare at the screen. Finally, Lovely says, “Aren’t they all the capitals of their respective countries?”

Jonathan does a Google search and after a minute says, “You’re right. They are all national capitals. I wasn’t sure about Chisinau, but yeah, it’s the capital of Moldova.”

“I’ve never heard of that country,” Kathleen says.

“It’s next to Romania on the Black Sea,” Jonathan says.

“McCarthy lied when he testified he was on vacation,” I say. “It was some kind of business trip.”

“Or politics,” Jonathan says. “Where there are capitals, there are politicians, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “More likely politics. Anything else?”

We fall silent again. I stare at the slide, but I’m so tired from the day’s drama that I can’t form a coherent thought. “This is frustrating,” I say. “We’re so close to nailing those motherfuckers.”

Kathleen’s face flushes scarlet. “Professor Stern—”

“Sorry about the language Ms. Williams, but I—”

“Let me finish. This stuff doesn’t prove that the Assembly did anything wrong. So what if McCarthy met with politicians. He’s a lobbyist, right? Isn’t it his job to meet with people in politics? And his trip doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with that payment to that Bennett guy.” Though she says all of this in a calm tone, her anger is palpable.

I strain to keep my own voice steady. “Ms. Williams, The Emery Group made the payment to Delwyn Bennett only a few weeks before McCarthy took this trip. McCarthy controlled The Emery Group’s account. He went to great lengths not to produce this itinerary in discovery. There has to be a connection between the trip and the payment.”

“No there does not,” she insists. “It doesn’t have to mean anything like that. You’re always so quick to condemn the Assembly. And you’ve been so majorly wrong. Look at the debacle yesterday with Rich Baxter’s broken . . . what’s it called, hyoid bone. Check out the Internet. The media is laughing at us.”

My anger wells up, the caustic kind that that’s all too easy to direct at gentle people like Kathleen. “Ms. Williams, are you familiar with these words from Bradley Kelly? ‘The Sanctified must turn their backs on profane temptations from whomever they come and abjure petty loyalties and banish those whose souls are defective and immerse themselves in the cleansing waters of the Fount.’”

“I’ve read that.”

“Abjure petty loyalties, Ms. Williams. Your loyalties obviously lie elsewhere. I want the truth. Did you tell the Assembly that I was looking for Grace Trimble? That Grace used the alias Sandra Casey?”

“Parker!” Lovely says.

Jonathan’s body goes rigid. “You got to be joking, dude.”

“You’re asking me if I . . . ?” Kathleen’s voice cracks. Her jaw keeps moving, but no words come out. She blinks a few times and gathers herself. “You’re seriously accusing me of giving confidential information to the opposition? Of being some kind of spy? I’ve been killing myself on your trial, and—”

“He didn’t mean it that way, Kathleen,” Lovely says. “He’s just—”

“That’s exactly what I meant.”

Kathleen slumps down in her seat and turns away so I can see only the side of her face. She fans her eyes with her hand in a futile attempt to stave off tears.

Jonathan stands. “Fuck this, man. You’ve lost it. Kathleen wouldn’t do anything like that.” He takes her hand. “Come on, Kath.”

“Mr. Borzo, I suggest you—”

“I don’t give a damn what you suggest. This isn’t a class, it’s a circus. And we’re done with your trial. Optional, right? You’ve fucked it up anyway. You aren’t qualified to teach us anything.”

I watch as he helps her gather up her things. All the while, Lovely has this disappointed yet detached look of a lab worker who’s just witnessed a botched experiment. Jonathan leads Kathleen out of the classroom, making sure to slam the door hard behind him. Shaken, I lean back against the wall.

Lovely rests her chin in her hands and closes her eyes as if I’ve exhausted her. “I absolutely don’t believe that Kathleen did what you accused her of. Do you know how hard she and Jonathan have been working? And she’s right, you know. This stuff about McCarthy is definitely intriguing, but it doesn’t prove anything.”

I bow my head and use my thumbs to rub my temples in what I know will be a futile attempt to stave off a raging headache. “OK. You’re right. Kathleen was right. All of you are a thousand percent right. I’m an asshole.” I look at her, really look at her, for the first time since I watched that video. With her hair pulled back in that high ponytail, she looks, not sexy or brazen, but young and fresh, like one of the ingénues in the G-rated movies I acted in as a kid. “Why didn’t you leave with Kathleen and Jonathan?”

She removes the scrunchie holding her ponytail and lets her hair down, which she pulls back to make a tighter ponytail. “You know, I probably should leave. But my father taught me never to abandon the people you love.”