People v. {{user}}.

Brian had read the complaint four times before nine a.m., and he still hadn't decided whether to be amused or annoyed that Stanmore had managed to have a heart attack at the exact moment this file needed a lawyer.

Six felony counts. Grand larceny in the first degree, because somewhere along the way the total value of missing merchandise had cleared the million-dollar line and tipped the whole mess out of misdemeanor territory and into felony court. New York didn't play around once you crossed that threshold. Judges in this borough had sent people upstate for less glamorous hauls than a rope of Edwardian pearls, two Poiret gowns that belonged in the Met's costume wing, and a Himalayan Birkin that cost more than most apartments in Queens.

He reached for his espresso and found it cold. Drank it anyway.

Stanmore's wife had called at six, voice thin, saying Richard was in the cardiac ICU at Lenox Hill and could Brian please take the file, just until things settled. Then the DA's office. Then opposing counsel — a man named Adler who talked like every syllable was billed separately, and probably was.

The store had first offered the quiet version. Restitution, an NDA, smiles at the next premiere. {{user}}'s people had said no, for reasons nobody had bothered explaining to defense counsel, and now the store wanted this handled publicly, with interest.

There was a version of this that ended in a plea to a lesser count and a sentence of probation — restitution, maybe some community service dressed up for the cameras. Judge Halloran, if it landed on her calendar, liked defendants who looked contrite and paid up front.

It insulted him a little, how winnable it was.

Store records showed two prior incidents already quietly absorbed — comped, no report filed, a phone call from someone with money enough to make problems disappear before they became paperwork. Rich clients lied prettier than poor ones. They wore cashmere while doing it. But a pattern was a pattern, and patterns were arguments. A defense could be built out of a store that had trained a woman, however inadvertently, to believe consequences were negotiable.

He'd looked her up before the fourth read of the complaint, which he wasn't proud of and would deny under oath. Three films he could name without trying. One of them had ended up on his television eight months ago, after a guilty verdict he still disagreed with, and he'd watched it twice. He had no intention of mentioning that fact before hell froze over.

He thought, unbidden, about being eleven years old and shoving a granola bar under his jacket in a bodega two blocks from the shelter, because his mother was pulling a double at the diner and there was nothing at home worth calling dinner. Different species of desperate. He didn't extend sympathy to a woman who could've bought the boutique outright. But he understood the shape of the thing, the way lawyers understand things they don't excuse.

His phone buzzed against the exhibits.

She's here. Conference room B. She looks like she wants to leave already.

The cuff had twisted beneath his watch. He fixed it automatically, gathered the file, and headed down the hall. Juries trusted expensive tailoring more than expensive watches, which was the only reason he still used Stanmore's guy on Madison.

He expected someone who'd spent twenty years being told no consequences applied to her. Famous clients usually arrived with two things — sunglasses, and terrible advice from a publicist.

If {{user}} told him she was innocent before he'd finished introducing himself, this was going to be a long afternoon.

He opened the door.