Manhattan, present day

Tessa Van Doren looked out the window of her loft onto the madness on the street below her. It was eleven-thirty p.m., and the city's beautiful people were packed six deep down the block and around the corner, behind velvet ropes, all vying to get into her club. She sipped at her forty- year-old cognac and spotted Flynn and his partner in their car across the street. Her hands shook ever so slightly, and she took a deep breath and then another sip of cognac. Flynn had lousy manners, always looked like he needed a haircut and a shave, and dressed in Salvation Army castoffs, but he thrilled her in a way that made a century of loneliness fall away.

She could have her pick of anyone. Men, dressed in expensive Italian suits, would try to pass Jorge, her head bouncer and guardian of the most desired velvet rope in all of Manhattan, a cool one hundred in neatly folded twenties, palm to palm. But Jorge, as far as she could tell, never took the money, was never swayed. He selected the crowd based on his own indefinable criteria. Somehow, by the end of the night, those inside the Night Flight Club would include the right mix of supermodels and celebrities, beautiful women and powerful men, journalists and sports stars, rappers and rock-and-rollers. And occasionally, the NYPD's Flynn and Williams. Flynn always drew stares, as if people wondered what the bouncer, Jorge, was thinking letting this joker past the velvet ropes — though Williams blended in perfectly. Detective Williams's skin was smooth and coffee-colored, and he wore his hair cut so close to his scalp that he looked almost royal, all cheekbones and strong jaw, with dark eyes and lashes that women would kill for.

Tessa walked over to the oriental desk she had brought with her years before from China and dialed the downstairs phone. "When detectives Flynn and Williams arrive, tell Lily to show Mr. Flynn into my office. Let Williams mingle."

Every night at midnight, Tessa would descend in her private glass elevator and make her way through her club to the back room, to the select few who made it into her inner sanctum, the VIP room, with its opulent deep-purple velvet couches and soft lighting. There she would hold court until nearly dawn with the big names and high rollers.

Tessa went back to the window and looked down on the near- mayhem below, then walked through her loft to her bedroom. The living room was full of antiques she'd collected over the years. She enjoyed the hunt, and could recount with startling accuracy the origins of each piece and how she had acquired it. On the walls hung paintings by Goya and Chagall, and one by Picasso — not her favorite, though — from his Cubist period. She loved her Rousseau most, the solitary moon peeking over the jungle vegetation. And of course, her tapestries from Shanghai, though she still felt a pang sometimes when she looked at them. Other oriental treasures sat on the mahogany custom-built shelves — jade figurines and porcelain vases, illuminated by recessed lighting. They reminded her of the happiest and saddest time of her life, her unnaturally long life. Later, when Tessa exited the loft, the best alarm system money could buy would protect her paintings and treasures, as well as her vintage clothing and jewelry collection — and her secrets.

She entered her bedroom, which was like walking into a vault of luxury. The bed was covered in pure silk sheets she had brought from Hong Kong. The canopy was a rich brocade. The carpets covering the dark hardwood floors, knotted with hand-made craftsmanship, were from Iran, Pakistan, China and Turkey. Her furniture was heavy mahogany wood, late nineteenth century. Yet she mixed ruby- red glass-and-silver candle-holders and candles and a collection of Steuben glass, as well as a whimsical collection of elephant statues and figurines, all with trunks raised, a sign of good fortune. The result wasn't stuffy or overdone, but simply spoke of great elegance and wealth. Far from being ostentatious, the loft was decorated with a taste and class honed over time. In actuality, the entire room was a vault, into which she could recede before dawn cast its first light over the island of Manhattan, and a Wellington lock and special alarm protected her from intruders. It was as if her bedroom was a giant panic room.

She walked to her cavernous dressing room, the size of a small New York City apartment. Mechanized racks rotated her clothes so she could see her incredible collection of vintage clothing: Dior, Chanel, Edith Head, Oleg Cassini, as well as new but elegant fashions from her favorites, including Dolce & Gabbana, one of the few new design teams of which she approved. Tonight she chose an Oleg Cassini gown, velvet, midnight-blue and strapless. Downstairs, amid the noise and drinking and the heavy techno-beat of the music spun by her DJ, who went by the simple moniker of "Cool," she knew most of the women would be dressed in miniskirts and knee-high boots — the season's latest. But Tessa never wavered from her vintage clothing. She always looked, Jorge told her, like she had just stepped into the room from another time, another place. Even if she hadn't owned Night Flight, she would, she knew, make the crowd part with her entrance.

Tessa zipped up her gown, expertly put on her makeup and then sipped her cognac again, thinking of Flynn and berating herself for this stupid infatuation. She wore her black hair up in a French twist, and diamond earrings dangled from her lobes. She chose a diamond brooch for the center of her cleavage and pinned it to her dress. Next she donned a diamond watch, a single sapphire ring that had once adorned a queen's hand, and, as always, she wore a gold bracelet with a small key attached.

Tessa approved herself in the triple mirror in her dressing room. She knew certain myths about mirrors and vampires — the work of the overactive imagination of Bram Stoker. She was vain enough to not leave her private quarters unless she was perfect. She knew, correctly, that she was always flawless, yet she never tired of that twirl in the triple mirror. Perhaps it was the reassurance that despite all she had lost, she still was eternally young.

Finally, she went to a small alcove off of her bedroom and knelt at the gold statue of Buddha. The idea of reincarnation appealed to her, as opposed to a Christian heaven or hell, Satan or Christ. She decided that she simply wouldn't die between reincarnations but would grow and learn with each human lifetime she lived, until she reached Nirvana. It was a bastardized version of Buddhism, she realized. Buddhists were not supposed to take lives, however evil the soul within the body was. But she chanted briefly and spoke a silent prayer nonetheless, the chant always taking her back to a time when she truly had been at peace. Then she left the loft, setting the alarm and taking the elevator down to the club.

Parked in their unmarked car, Alex Williams looked with disdain at his partner's attire.

"Please tell me you're not walking in there wearing that sorry-ass tie," Alex snapped at Tony Flynn as they sat across the street from the Night Flight Club, Manhattan's hottest night spot of the moment. "You'll make me look bad just by being seen with you, man."

"What's wrong with my tie?"

"For one thing, it's ugly. What is that? Puke-green? For another, it's right out of the eighties. Do you think you're a member of Duran Duran? Just how long do you keep these things hangin' in your closet? And three, it's a living history of your day. Is that a mustard stain?"

Flynn looked down and rolled his eyes. "Yeah.... From breakfast."

"I have to tell you...that's just wrong."

"I'd rather have a Sabrett's hot dog for breakfast than one of those friggin' soy shakes you drink."

Alex patted his washboard abs. "Pays off in my beautiful physique, man.... But you...hot dogs? And I think that white smudge is shaving cream."

Flynn stared at a smear of white on the pointed tip of the tie. It was shaving cream. He sighed. He hated shaving. He was blessed and cursed with thick black curly hair and a swarthy complexion and dark beard that three hours after shaving looked like five o'clock shadow, as if he hadn't shaved at all.

"And," Alex continued, "the pièce de résistance, ladies and gentlemen? Blue pen marks and a spot of Wite-Out. My friend, you write on paper, not your tie."

"Fuck you, Williams," Flynn muttered as they opened their car doors. They stood on the sidewalk a minute. "And what do I care what my tie looks like?"

Alex, always impeccably dressed in suits tailor-made for his former quarterback's body, shook his head. "The caliber of ladies at Night Flight, Flynn. The caliber of ladies. They're gonna take one look at you and run screaming. And that reflects on me." He feigned hurt.

"I'm not here to cop a bunch of women's phone numbers, I'm here to check out the disappearance of one low-life drug dealer whose last known hangout was the Night Flight Club."

Alex sighed as the two men stepped from the curb and started walking toward the club with the confident yet slight swaggers that a combined total of twenty-eight years on the NYPD force buys two of New York's finest. Alex continued egging on his partner. "You can lie to your ex-wife. You can lie to your sainted mother if you want to, but don't lie to me. Your partner. The guy who took a bullet for you...right here." He pointed to his shoulder.

Flynn rolled his eyes. "Enough with the bullet already. It grazed you."

"Yeah, well, it entitles me to harass you for the rest of our lives. And I know one thing as sure as I know you had a microwaved hot dog for breakfast. I know you want one phone number...the home number of Tessa. And she digs you, too, ugly ties and all. Makes me wonder about her."

"Yeah, well, I wonder all right. She's running a dirty club."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Look, it's a free country. She can't control every person who enters the club. Maybe she's legit."

"Sure, Williams. And the Carlucci family just happens to like the place a whole lot. They're not Boy Scouts. And she ain't no Girl Scout."

"If she was, I bet you'd buy a lot of Thin Mints." Flynn slugged his partner in the arm. "Shut up already."

"You punched my bullet wound."

"I fuckin' give up." Flynn threw his hands in the air and tried not to let Williams see him smile.

As they neared the club entrance, the sidewalk was packed with women in low-rise skirts and Prada boots and men smelling of heavy cologne. The two partners pushed and squeezed their way through the crowd to the bouncer and flashed their badges, unaware they were being watched.