On Christmas morning, my nine-year-old tore open the gift from my father-in-law and screamed before the lid even hit the floor.

The Morristown legal offices of Vance, Vance & Sterling sat on the third floor of an old brick building behind the county courthouse, shaded by massive, bare-limbed red oaks that were older than the state itself.

When Detective Lin’s cruiser slid onto the slush-covered curb at four in the morning, the building was dark except for two arched windows on the top floor.

Thin, gray smoke was rising from the brick chimney on the south gable—not the clean, white steam of a gas furnace, but the thick, oily soot of burning coated paper and synthetic binder covers.

"He's in the library," Lin said, racking the slide of her Glock 19 with a heavy, double-click that echoed inside the cruiser. "The back fire escape is locked from the inside. We don't wait for the SWAT team from Newark, Elena. That chimney is fifty feet high; those records will be ash in ten minutes."

"I'm coming with you," I said.

"You stay in the car."

"My daughter is dying four miles from here," I said, staring directly into Lin’s dark eyes. "You don't know which ledger has the chemical manifests. Mark told me Gary kept the synthesis sheets in a red binder with a three-ring brass spine. You’ll be looking for loose paper while Harold burns the only formula Dr. Morrison needs."

Lin looked at me for three long seconds, then reached into the back seat and grabbed a spare Kevlar vest, tossing it into my lap. "Put it on. If I tell you to get down, you hit the floor and you don't look up until I say clear."

We breached the front glass door with a steel pry-bar from the trunk, the alarm siren screaming into the frozen night with a high, pulsing wail that set off the dogs in the neighborhood behind the bank.

We took the stairs three at a time.

The third-floor hallway was already hazy with bitter, chemical-tasting smoke that smelled of burning vinyl and ancient glue. At the end of the hall, the frosted glass door of the private library was illuminated from within by the orange, leaping glow of an open hearth.

Lin didn't knock.

She kicked the lock-plate with the heel of her tactical boot. The mahogany door burst inward with a splintering crack, slamming against the library bookshelves.

Harold Vance was standing in front of an eight-foot brick fireplace, wearing a cashmere overcoat over his pajama trousers. In his gloved hands, he held a heavy, wire-bound book with a mottled black cover, the edges already curling and blackening in the orange flames.

On the mahogany table behind him sat two open leather briefcases packed with passports, bearer bonds, and three thick stacks of crisp, hundred-dollar bills wrapped in federal bank bands.

"Drop it!" Lin screamed, her weapon leveled at Harold’s chest. "Step away from the hearth! Put it down now!"

Harold didn't drop the book.

He was seventy-two years old, with thin, silver hair combed neatly back from his high forehead and the cold, arrogant eyes of a man who had spent fifty years winning arguments in probate court. He looked at Lin’s Glock, then at the fire, and then at me.

"You're too late, Officer," Harold said, his voice smooth, cultured, entirely devoid of the fear that had broken Mark Vance into pieces in that hospital room. "The secondary corporate records are proprietary attorney-client communications. You have no jurisdiction to seize privileged materials from a private firm without a master warrant signed by the presiding judge of the appellate division."

"He's burning it," I said, stepping past Lin’s shoulder.

"Step back, Harold!" Lin barked, advancing across the Persian rug, her boots sliding slightly on the polished hardwood. "I will shoot you in this room!"

"No, you won't," Harold said, his fingers tightening on the red leather binder that sat on the table beside the briefcases—the red binder with the three-ring brass spine. "Because if you shoot an unarmed attorney in his own chambers, the entire chain of custody is tainted. My partners will have every piece of evidence from this building thrown out before the preliminary hearing concludes."

He lifted the red binder, swinging his arm toward the flames.

I didn't wait for Lin to shoot.

I lunged across the mahogany conference table, my fingers catching the corner of the heavy brass spine just as the lower paper edges kissed the glowing birch logs.

The heat hit my face like a furnace blast. The leather was hot enough to scorch the skin of my palms, the vinyl coating blistering instantly with a sickening, plastic stink.

Harold’s fist came down across my cheekbone, the heavy gold seal of his signet ring cutting deep into the meat below my left eye. The pain was white and bright, but my fingers didn't slip.

I twisted the binder against his thumbs, using the leverage of the table edge to pry the steel rings from his grip.

"Get off me, you suburban little bitch!" Harold snarled, his other hand reaching for a heavy brass desk lamp on the table.

A single gunshot cracked behind me.

The brass lamp shattered in Harold’s hand, the heavy base spinning away across the oriental rug as a 9mm slug plowed through the mahogany desk three inches from his hip.

Harold froze, his arm still raised, his silver hair wild, his mouth open in total, paralyzed shock.

Detective Lin was standing two feet away, the smoking barrel of her service weapon pressed directly against the center of his forehead, hard enough to leave a deep, circular indentation in his thin skin.

"Move one finger," Lin whispered, her voice dead and flat as a tombstone. "Give me one reason to clear this room."

Harold’s breath came in fast, shallow gasps. His arms slowly, trembling, rose into the air above his head.

I fell backward onto the rug, hugging the scorched red binder to my chest, the heat soaking through my borrowed Kevlar vest, the smell of burning paper filling my nose like the scent of an open grave.

I opened the cover.

Beneath the singed plastic of the first sleeve was a hand-typed chemical manifest dated September 18, 1978:

*Compound 1080-D / Carrier: Polyoxyethylene nonylphenyl ether / Specific Gravity: 1.06 / Targeted Neutralizing Protocol: Pralidoxime Chloride & High-Dose Atropine Infusion.*

I looked up at Lin, the blood from my cheek dripping down onto the yellowed paper.