We all laughed as Yuki’s animated reenactment lit up the table. She did her mom so well, I could see Keiko as if she were right there.

“I said, ‘Mom, he’s not for me.’ So she said, ‘Yuki-eh. Looks mean nothing. Dr. Pierce honest man. He good man. Looks for mag-azines.’ I said, ‘Mom, Daddy looked like Frank Sinatra. What are you talking about?’”

“So are you going out with him?” Cindy asked, sending us into new rounds of laughter.

Yuki shook her head. “You mean, if he asks me? You mean, if my mom grabs his cell phone and dials my number for him?”

We were having so much fun the band had to dial up the music a notch to be heard over our good time. Twenty minutes later, Yuki left the table before the coffee and chocolate mud pie, saying she wanted to see Keiko again before visiting hours were over.

Despite her rapid-fire talk, and our good-time chatter, there were worry lines between Yuki’s beautiful brown eyes when she told us all good night.

Chapter 16

MAUREEN O’MARA FELT HER PULSE beating in her temples. Was that possible? Well, that’s how pumped she was. She pulled open one of the massive steel-and-glass doors to the Civic Center Courthouse and entered the cool gray interior.

Goddamn.

Today was the day. She owned this place.

She handed her briefcase to the security guard, who put it on the X-ray machine and checked it as she cleared the metal detectors. He nodded good morning and returned her seven-hundred-dollar “lucky” Louis Vuitton case with a smile.

“Best a’ luck today, Miss O’Mara.”

“Thanks, Kevin.”

O’Mara showed the guard her crossed fingers; then she cut through the milling crowd in the lobby and headed toward the elevator bank.