"Matthew, let's go!" Debbie howled at the top of her lungs. She quickly rebounded back on her feet and grabbed her son again with both hands. The boy didn't look at her even once, just kept staring at the fire surrounding them. Suddenly, behind my back, the fire engine siren cut through the thick smoky air, and two shiny red fire trucks showed themselves among the trees.

I ran after Debbie and together we pulled her son away from the fire and out of the way of the fire crew. Matthew was taller and heavier than me, and in his stupor, his body felt like stone. Two firefighters were running toward us when Matthew saw them. He pushed his mother down again and hit me in my face with his elbow. For a second, I saw sparks flying, and my nose bled. The boy threw me off his back like a young mustang and ran towards the burning trees. Debbie got on her feet and ran after him, limping. Two heavily equipped firefighters ran behind her.

Without a sound or hesitation, Matthew ran into the burning bush. Debbie screamed hysterically but couldn't make herself go into the fire after her child. Considering the splitting pain in my eyes and nose, I didn't blame her. Two running firefighters passed her and entered the fire, looking like immortal creatures from outer space.

With a terrible noise, the fire engines finally opened their water supplies, and flooded the ground and my expensive shoes. I ran to Debbie, grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the clouds of smoke and steam and water. The police officer sent us to the ambulance, saying that the guys from the fire department got her son. "He's getting medical help," the cop added. "He got burned."

We found an ambulance parked in the school parking lot, and Debbie asked to look at her son. He was unconscious and heavily burned. His hair was gone; black cracks in his cheeks and hands oozed with a tear-like substance.

Debbie didn't even cry. Somebody gave her a bottle of water, she got into the ambulance, and they took off. A moment later, I realized I had an hour before the `lie detector' appointment.

Water ran down on the floor mat the moment I pressed the gas pedal. It's amazing how much water gets onto you when you try to put out a fire. I congratulated myself on my shoe choice. In the morning, I had picked up some reliable and simple-looking moccasins from Dolce & Gabbana. It is still unclear to me what one would be expected to wear, if, during working hours, one has to extinguish a fire and then show up at a high-end Center City security firm, accompanying a client, and representing Joe Madnick's law firm.

Joe didn't give me a security company phone number, so I couldn't just call and cancel the appointment. I had to drive there myself. During the next thirty minutes, driving to the city, I thought of getting organized by writing phone numbers, addresses and important dates. After all, the work of a detective is all about collecting data and synthesizing it.

I parked on the corner of 5th and Arch Street, which was just a block away from the hole in the wall we had rented with Iris after my third divorce. I got out of my Jaguar. Common wisdom says to wait for four years after a divorce. Don't wait, just do it, I say. I got divorced because something right and true waited for me and couldn't come to me, because my dysfunctional marriage was in the way. I recalled a black guy without a name. The police called him Joe Smith, who attacked me then. If it wasn't for him, Alexander would have walked right past me, looking through me without seeing me, and we would never be together. Call it destiny. I say, when something bad happens, look for something good around the next corner. (By the way, I never pressed charges against my attacker, and Alexander helped him to get legal aid. A year ago, he was out of prison and on his way to recovery from amnesia. I didn't know where the guy was at that point, but if he was in prison, it wasn't because of me.)

555 Walnut Street occupied a respectable-looking brownstone office building. Inside, the porter looked at me from head to toe, admiring, probably, my casual but smart style, took my signature and pointed to the fourth floor. He was very articulate, flipping four fingers at me and pointing all four fingers toward the elevator door. In the company's hallway, there was a huge brass eagle on the wall. In its beak it held a brass log with the lettering `Planet Security' on it.

"Good afternoon. How can I help you?" A melodious woman's voice startled me, and I looked around for its source.

"Can I help you?" the same voice insisted. I crossed the hallway to look at a wooden structure bigger than some people's houses and found a woman sitting inside.

"Hi," I said. "I have an appointment at two o'clock for a polygraph test."

The secretary didn't even look at me, searching her computer.

"Oh, Deborah Cooper. Very good, madam. You can enter this door and wait there. Where's your lawyer?"

"He'll be here shortly," I said. "I didn't know he was supposed to be here, but if he was, he will."

Behind the door was a long, narrow corridor without windows. I crashed into one of the chairs along the wall and tried to call Joe, but his phone bounced me back. I wonder how his poor clients can reach him, if he's unreachable even to his own detective?

The door next to me opened, and a guy with huge upper arms looked out.

"Are you Deborah Cooper?" he asked crossly. His small but wise eyes searched me up and down and then stopped on my face.

"Er.," I said. "The deal is."

"What's this smell? Did you smoke here?" He wrinkled his nose just like my daughter had done, smelling something unpleasant.

"The restroom is at the end of the corridor. Don't smoke here! When you are done, come here and knock at the door. Do you understand English? Where's your lawyer?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly and headed for the restroom. They had a tiny unisex restroom. I peed first, then looked at myself in the mirror, and screamed. No wonder my Ivy League school English wasn't good enough for him. In the mirror, childhood's nightmare was staring back at me: ash-covered makeup like a gray mask on my face, my red hair styled with Curls Up gel all frizzed up in a hairball and hanging above my right ear. My L'Or,al super black mascara was smeared in big dark circles. Wet paper towels took off mascara and ashes, but my hair stayed dirty gray no matter how much I wetted it. I couldn't waste any of the paid test time anymore, so I returned to the door and knocked. The same guy let me into the room and directed me to the only chair.

"Sit here, please," he said, and when I took a seat, he buckled me up with wires. "Don't move," he said sternly. "Look over there, listen to my question and answer only `yes' or `no'."

"What if…?"

"Only `yes' or `no'."

"Are you Deborah Cooper?"

"Well, Cooper is actually a married name…"

"Yes or no?"

"Yes," I lied. After all, it was entirely this guy's fault because he never let me explain Debbie went to the hospital with her burned son, and Joe disappeared and wasn't answering my calls.

"Are you thirty-eight years old?"

"No! I'm thirty." I was actually thirty-five, but it wasn't for him to know. Now, I wanted to pass this test for Debbie, so we could sue Gamma Woods and the company. The poor woman was suffering too much, and nobody should get away with accusing their co-workers of stealing. Joe Smith came to my mind again. He accused me of attacking him, and if it wasn't for my material witness, Alex, I could be in prison right now.