“He’ll answer for all of it on Tuesday morning.”

By seven o’clock on the evening of February twenty-fifth, three days before the trial, Midtown was silent under a thick layer of winter slush.

I sat across from Daniel Harris in his office on Madison Avenue while the streetlamps cast long shadows across his desk blotter.

A green fax sheet lay face up between us, bearing the official letterhead of Whitmore Capital’s defense firm.

“Cole’s lead attorney sent this twenty minutes ago,” Daniel said, taking off his gold-rimmed glasses and cleaning them with his silk pocket square.