At 6:00 p.m. precisely we convene in the library for the first case briefing, which is always a big deal. Naomi is a stickler for being on time, so the protocol is to show up a minute or two early, take your seat and try to sit up straight. Boss lady is never there to begin with; she always makes an entrance, and this evening is no exception. The other notable entrance of the evening belongs to Dane Porter, our attorney. Dane is five foot nothing, but feisty, and has a legal mind that’s the antidote to every blond joke. How many blond lawyers does it take to keep Naomi Nantz and her team out of jail when they overstep the bounds? Exactly one.

“Sorry I missed all the excitement,” Dane says, sauntering in on spike heels that should be registered as weapons. She’s wearing a hand-tailored power suit-wide pinstripes on a dark blue background, trim lapels, a tight-vested waist-and a custom-made handbag given to her by a female hip-hop artist (a famous one, who shall remain nameless here because she likes handguns) who happens to dance to the same music as the lovely lawyer.

“Was it really a helicopter attack? Men on ropes?” she asks Jack, who is busy examining his well-buffed nails.

“That’s affirmative,” he says.

“Alice?” Dane says, flashing me a radiant smile. “Tell me lover boy is joking.”

“Never saw the helicopter,” I say, “but there were definitely men on ropes. With guns.”

“How exciting!”

“Good evening, Counselor,” says Naomi, entering with laptop in hand. She takes the temporary command seat, directly across the table from me.

As usual it will be my job to take meticulous notes in my personal shorthand, in a form known only to myself, and to keep a precise chronology of the ongoing investigation, updated on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. The active case briefings are never, ever electronically recorded for a variety of reasons, legal and otherwise. The idea is to prevent criminals we might be investigating-or interested law enforcement agencies-from hacking into our system and determining what we know at any given moment. It’s not paranoia, because it actually happened on an earlier case, hence the precautions.