AARON SAT FOR A WHILE longer after Gwen left the coffee shop. The idea of owing her a favor both amused and intrigued him. He liked seeing her lighten up enough to strike the bargain, but he knew she could be a formidable adversary. There was no telling what Gwen Haverty might ask of him.

He thought about mailing the tickets back to her and claiming that Release Initiative had ethics rules that prevented him from accepting the gift. But that would be a lie and he knew she’d be insulted. He tapped the pair of tickets on the table in front of him. That’s when he noticed the BlackBerry sitting by itself on the left side of the table.

Hadn’t he set his on the opposite side? How had it gotten over there? Unless…

He picked up the device and hit a key to wake it up. Sure enough, the BlackBerry wasn’t his. No photo of a smiling boy greeted him. There was no personalization at all. Clearly, this BlackBerry belonged to Maryland District Attorney Gwendolyn Haverty. She must have taken his by accident.

He grinned. “At least I’m guaranteed another chance to talk to her about Omar,” he said to himself as he contemplated the prospect of exchanging phones. Maybe she’d need hers badly enough to invite him to her home this evening. He admitted to some serious curiosity about the woman who so frequently thwarted his professional efforts in court. It would be helpful if he could figure out what made her tick. And he wouldn’t mind seeing her relaxed and dressed in something other than tailored suits.

He nudged the BlackBerry into a spin on the surface of the table and watched it as he thought about Gwen—her troubles with her ex, the son who was nearly the same age as his own, her glossy brown hair.

Her what? Wait. He slapped his hand over the spinning phone as his brain tripped over a horrifying possibility. Was he attracted to the woman?

That couldn’t be right. He still loved Beth. And Gwen was the polar opposite of Beth. Gwen had a serious nature, Beth had loved to laugh. Gwen made a point of maintaining a perfect external image, Beth only ever cared about what was on the inside. An attraction to Gwen would make no sense. And asking her on a date out of curiosity would be an insult to Beth’s memory. Gwen would not welcome it anyway. She would never reciprocate his interest. If he had any interest. Which he most certainly did not.

Frustrated with the drift of his thoughts, he picked up the BlackBerry and dialed his own number. He’d tell her they’d mixed up the phones and arrange to trade. And that would be the end of that.

No answer. She had depositions this afternoon and may have silenced the phone for the duration. He’d try again later.

For now, he’d do things to remind himself of what he’d had with Beth. Even after three years, it still felt imperative that he remain faithful to her. Otherwise, what had their love really meant? He pocketed the BlackBerry and headed for home, taking the bus out to the suburbs because he couldn’t call himself an environmentalist if he drove his car everywhere.

At home, chaos reigned, as was so often the case.

“What?” he asked his mother-in-law as soon as he saw the scowl on Phyllis’s face.

“That boy,” she said.

“And?” he encouraged. But he knew Benjamin’s propensity for adventure often led him into trouble.

“He turned my entire load of laundry blue.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but it’s definitely blue and it was definitely Ben’s fault.”

Aaron sighed. “Ben!” he shouted up the stairway of the house they’d only just moved into. “I need to talk to you!”

Ben came without hesitation, clattering down the stairs all elbows and knees, and rushed into Aaron’s arms for a hug. “What’s up?” he asked cheerfully.

Aaron hugged him back, glad for the warmth he and his son shared, but then stepped away so he could be more parental. He looked Ben squarely in the eyes. “What’s with the blue laundry?”

Ben looked puzzled, then he caught sight of the soggy clothing his grandmother held in her hands. The formerly white T-shirt was now splotched with blue. “Wow, I didn’t know it would turn anything a different color. Cool!”

Aaron tried to retain his scowl, but it was hard when Ben was so irrepressible. “Why were you messing with the washing machine?”

“I needed a centro-fridge.”

“A centrifuge?” Aaron asked. “What for?”

“Experiments. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. It didn’t work, though. And I guess some of the stuff got out of the jar during the spin cycle. Sorry.”

“You ruined all the clothes, Benjamin,” admonished Phyllis.

“Not on purpose,” he responded, unfazed. “And I don’t mind if my stuff is blue. It’s kinda cool.”

Phyllis growled. “It’s everyone’s laundry, Ben, not just yours. The adults in this family may not want all of their white things to be blue.”

“Okay,” Ben said. He turned his remorseful gaze toward his grandmother. “I’m sorry I accidentally turned some of your clothes blue. Can I go back to my room? I was in the middle of a major Wii tournament.”

Aaron had a hard time seeing why the laundry issue was so important in the big scheme of things. What did it matter if a few clothes turned blue? The kid had apologized, the damage was minimal, the reason was youthful experimentation. It all seemed like normal boy stuff to Aaron. “Sure,” he said to Ben.

“Aaron!” Phyllis exclaimed as Ben thumped back up the stairs to resume his game. “That boy will never learn to respect others if you let him get away with this kind of behavior.”

“He’s respectful,” Aaron protested, stung by the accusation. “He’s a good kid, just exuberant.”

She tossed the sodden T-shirt at him and he reflexively caught it. Drops of water splashed the front of his shirt. “That boy needs some discipline and consistency. He doesn’t listen to me and you’re not staying on top of him. Do you want him to have the same problems in his new school as he had in the last?”

Aaron didn’t agree that children should be controlled, necessarily, but she had a point about Ben getting into trouble at his last school. They’d recently moved to this house so Phyllis could have a couple of rooms for herself, and there was a yard for Ben, but the move also meant a new beginning for Ben in a different school where people didn’t know about his mischievous nature.

With a sigh, Aaron drew his mother-in-law into a one-armed hug, careful not to get the wet shirt near her. “You’re right. Discipline and consistency. I’ll talk to him again before bed. And if you set the blue laundry aside, I’ll teach him about bleach and have him rewash the load to see if we can get the color out.”

Phyllis hugged him back. That was something Aaron loved about his family—none of them could resist the healing properties of a warm hug. “Just make sure you watch him with the bleach and impress upon him that it’s dangerous stuff, not to be played with.” She took the T-shirt from his hands.

“Dangerous. Okay. Got it.” Then he made a strategic retreat to the sanctuary of his bedroom on the second floor.

“I’M LATE,” GWEN SAID to no one in particular as soon as they wrapped up the final deposition.

Logan nodded. “Aren’t you pretty much late every night?”

“Pretty much,” she agreed. “Fortunately, Clayton’s child support helps cover the extra cost of the babysitter. She gets twenty bucks for every half hour past six.”

Logan looked at his watch and whistled appreciatively. “Misha will be buying a new car very soon.”

Gwen nodded. Misha Gooding, the young woman who picked up Josh from summer camp and stayed at the house with him, certainly had a good thing going with her part-time job for the Haverty family. “Still, I better call and let her know I’m on my way.” She took out her BlackBerry and pushed the power button even as she continued to stack documents with her other hand. When she heard the tune indicating the phone had powered up, she hit the button on the side so she could give a voice command. “Call Misha,” she told it.

A computer voice chirped back, “Did you say call Mitsubishi?”

“Who?” she said, as if she could have an actual conversation with the phone.

“Did you say ‘call Hunan Manor?’” the voice asked in the same chirpy tone.

“Hunan Manor?” she said aloud, puzzled.

“Calling,” said the phone.

“No!” Gwen powered the thing off with her thumb to prevent it from placing a call to Hunan Manor, a Chinese restaurant near her home. It freaked her out that she couldn’t remember programming that number into the BlackBerry in the first place.

The whole exchange took about ten seconds, but once she’d turned the device off, she had a moment to think. Then she looked at it more closely.

“Is something wrong?” Logan asked.

“No,” Gwen said. She didn’t want to tell him what she suspected. “The battery might be dying,” she hedged.

Not really a lie, but certainly not the truth, and she felt guilty for the deception. She quickly scooped up her things and headed for the door. “I gotta run. Thanks for your help with the depositions, Logan.”

Once she was alone in the privacy of her Camry, she pulled out the misbehaving BlackBerry once more. She knew right away that this unit belonged to Aaron Zimmerman. A photo of a little boy appeared on the faceplate.

“Benjamin Zimmerman, I presume,” she said aloud. “And I’m still talking at the phone,” she added with a sigh. Resolving to stop treating her BlackBerry like a human assistant, she prodded the key pad to ring her own cell phone. Her voice mail answered. As tired as she was, she almost left Aaron a message, but realized just in time that doing so was silly. The man couldn’t listen to her voice messages without her numeric code and everything else was locked behind passwords.

As she thumbed the end key, she wondered if Aaron had the information on his own phone protected. Or did he just trust people to do the right thing and not try to access the private information on his personal digital assistant. Curiosity compelled her to depress the menu button. Sure enough, all his contacts and text messages were listed and she could have read any of them without trying any of the obvious passwords he might have used. “Beth” was the first one that came to mind. “Ben” or “Benjamin” would have been the next possibility. After that, maybe his wedding anniversary. She could get it from public records. It would be interesting to know if she’d sized up Aaron Zimmerman with any accuracy.

But there was no need for passwords. His text messages were hers for the taking with the click of a button. She didn’t have enough of the killer instinct to snoop into the information on Aaron’s phone. The fact that he trusted strangers to be decent about his personal data made her want to be worthy of that trust. She clicked the phone off and tossed it back into her briefcase, vowing to try calling him again later.

First, she needed to get home, relieve Misha of her duties—and pay her an extra forty dollars unless the traffic cooperated—then tell Josh the bad news about the Blue Man Group. The prospect made her wonder if she could pay Misha a thousand dollars to spend the night with Josh so she could put off telling him he’d be with his father for the weekend instead of attending the show. That information would not go over well with her child, she felt certain.

“You promised!” Joshua accused as soon as she told him.

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“We can exchange the tickets, right?”

Gwen sighed. “No, Josh. The shows are sold out. If we can’t use our tickets, we’re not going to be able to go until the Blue Man Group comes back to Baltimore, maybe next year.” But she knew it wasn’t likely to be that soon. By the time the group performed nearby again, Josh would be too old to want to go. She grieved for the lost opportunity to make this childhood wish come true before he outgrew it.

“Are you kidding?” he shouted. “Sold out! That’s not fair!”

“You’re right. It’s not fair.” Then a thought occurred to her. “Hey, maybe your dad will take you to see a Broadway show in New York City.” She tried to sound enthusiastic, implying with her tone that a show in New York would be a thousand times better.

“Ha. That’s what you know. Dad doesn’t have time for that kind of stuff.”

“He takes you places when you’re with him, right? And this is New York City, Josh. It’s a very cool place to visit.”

“We went to the museum in D.C. once and he spent the whole time on the phone to clients. And he just wants me around to impress his girlfriend. She says she likes kids. But I hate her.” He was working himself up into a tantrum that he was far too old for. “And I hate Dad. You, too, Mom. You always give in to him. Whatever he wants, whenever he wants to show me off to that girl, Brenda.” He said her name in a sneering singsong that Gwen would have appreciated if he weren’t also spewing venom about his own parents.

“Joshua, stop this right now,” she said, but she was struck numb by his accusation that she never stood up to his father.

“You don’t care what I want. You just do whatever he wants, no matter what your own son needs. It sucks!”

“A lot of kids would be thrilled to have a father who wants to spend time with them,” she said, but it came out sounding petulant. The divorce a year and a half ago had been hard on Josh and she knew she should cut him some slack.

“Oh, great!” he barked back. “Like this is all my fault. It’s your fault. You still let my ex-father run our lives.”

“He may be my ex-husband, but he’ll never be your ex-anything. He’s the only father you’ll ever have,” she retorted. But there was some truth in Joshua’s words, and that stung her. Her ex-husband did seem to end up running her life, even now. She’d have to work on that. But not today.

“He sucks!” Joshua declared, then he spun toward the stairs and began to stomp up toward his bedroom.

“Joshua Marcus Haverty, you stop this behavior right this instant.”

He halted halfway up and turned, resentment in his eyes. So like his father, she thought. She was responsible for how he was turning out. Yet, what hope was there of raising a decent young man when his father was such a selfish jerk?

She found herself blinking back sudden tears. This was her son, her beloved child, her baby. How could she compare him to Clayton or think for a single moment that he’d turn out badly? She loved him too much for that. “Josh,” she began. But her voice caught on those tears she wouldn’t allow to fall. She had to try again. “Let’s not fight. We need to get some dinner, talk about this calmly.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said. “May I please go to my room?”

Unspoken was the obvious sentiment that he couldn’t stand to be with her for another second. And she couldn’t blame him. She’d let him down. How had she allowed Clay to win the battle over the coming weekend?

“Yes, go ahead for now,” she said. “I’ll call you when dinner is ready, but no more drama from you, young man.” It crossed her mind that she sounded exactly like Clayton’s mother, Charlotte Clayton Haverty. Same tone, nearly the same words about no drama. Her own mother would have baked cookies and said children need space for their natural emotions. Gwen had never been able to embrace her mother’s easygoing approach to parenting, secretly fearing that her son would run wild, the way she’d done behind her mother’s back when she was young.

Gwen made her way to the kitchen, forcing herself through the motions required of her as a parent and the only person who cooked. And she told herself she’d only resorted to parroting her mother-in-law because she felt helpless when it came to Joshua. It was not because her mother-in-law was a font of wisdom—quite the opposite. Charlotte was too cold and self-centered to be of any help to Gwen. She’d raised Clayton as a single mother, and look how that had turned out. As for Gwen’s own mother, she might be kind and sweet, but she’d enjoyed such a happy marriage she’d left Gwen without a single hint about all the things that could go wrong between spouses. Gwen felt an abiding resentment for that lack of preparation.

Pulling leftover chicken out of the refrigerator, she wondered if she should try to find a decent male influence for Josh—someone who would show him there were other ways to behave besides those exhibited by his father. Immediately, Aaron’s smiling face came to mind.

She shuddered at the thought of involving herself with any man, especially Aaron. But of all the men she knew, Aaron was likely the safest. He would never have any romantic interest in her. For one thing, he undoubtedly had a girlfriend by now. Although she’d learned the hard way that when a man had a woman in his life, it didn’t necessarily mean he’d be faithful, she somehow believed Aaron would be the exception. Plus, their opposition to each other in the courtroom would add to her comfort level. He wouldn’t likely leap to the conclusion that she had a hidden personal agenda if she wanted to make a playdate for their two sons.

Dinner wasn’t pleasant. Joshua refused to speak to her, but he did sit at the table and consume the simple meal she’d prepared. Not much affected her growing boy’s appetite.

By the time the dishes were cleared, Gwen’s fatigue had eclipsed her will to work things out with her son. She let him return to his bedroom full of electronic amusements, despairing that her attempt to be both a mother and a full-time prosecutor would lead to her doing both jobs half as well as she should. With her self-esteem plummeting to a new low, she took herself into her bathroom for a long soak in the large tub. She even lit some candles.

When the tub brimmed with steaming water and bath salts, and the fragrance of lavender filled the humid air, she recalled that she needed to review some documents before a meeting she’d be attending in the morning. Sighing at the injustice of it, she retrieved her briefcase and set it next to the tub so she could read while she soaked. It was better than giving up the bath completely or staying up late to read.

But once she got into the soothing water, she couldn’t bring herself to pull the files out of the briefcase. Instead, she drowsed lazily and let her mind go blank, hoping that even a ten-minute mental vacation would restore her energy so she could once again face her two daunting jobs as mother and attorney.

“Puff the Magic Dragon” began playing in the bell-like tones that only a cell phone can manage. Gwen laughed out loud. She dried her hands and fished Aaron’s BlackBerry from her briefcase, thinking it had to be the defense attorney himself, looking to get his phone back.

“Hello?” she said, still smiling at the implications of a free spirit like Aaron having “Puff the Magic Dragon” as his ring tone.

“Where’s Aaron?” a woman demanded.