“I know, but they didn’t get that part exactly right. I just work in the office, more or less the grunt. Answer phones, get the coffee, like that.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

Thorpe blew out. His eyes scanned the street behind Mickey for a moment. “Nothing, really. I was hoping maybe… well, maybe you could talk to your bosses…”

“Boss. Singular. Wyatt Hunt. The Hunt Club. You need a private eye?”

“I don’t know what I need, to tell you the truth, but somebody like your boss might be a good place to start. I need somebody who knows something about the law and how it works and who isn’t a cop. And it’s not for me. It’s my sister. She worked for Dominic Como.”

“She did? What’d she do?”

“She was his driver.”

Mickey’s mouth all but hung open. “You’re kidding me?”

“No. Why do you say that?”

“ ’Cause that’s what my grandfather did for him too.”

But just at this moment, another pair of their classmates showed up at the corner. “Maybe we can talk a little after class?” Thorpe said. “You be up for that?”

Mickey shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

After class, back at the nearest Starbucks, Mickey removed the plastic top from his cup, blew over the coffee, and took a sip. “So,” he said, “your sister.”

Thorpe nodded. “Alicia.”

“Younger?”

“Three years. She’s twenty-five. Maybe I care about her so much because she’s my only family, actually.”

Mickey put down his cup. “I’ve got a sister who’s pretty much my only family, too, except for a grandfather.” He didn’t see any reason to include his boss, Wyatt Hunt, an adopted foster child himself, who, on his own time, back when he’d been working for the city’s Child Protective Services, had tracked down Jim Parr and convinced him to meet with his all-but-forgotten and abandoned grandchildren, a meeting that had eventually led to Jim’s job as Dominic Como’s driver and then Jim’s adoption of Mickey and Tamara less than a year later. Mickey went on. “Anyway, my dad disappeared for good when I was like two. My mom overdosed when I was seven. Heroin.”