Dr. Mira sighed. Such a place was built for peace and power, she thought. She wondered how often Eve settled for the first, how often she allowed herself to enjoy it.

"I've been expecting your call," she began, watching as Eve stared at the house. "I heard about the third murder."

"Her name was Jennie O'Leary. It sounds like a song, doesn't it?" Surprised that she'd said such a thing, Eve shook her head. "She and Roarke were friends. More than friends once."

"I see. And the other two victims, they were both from Ireland?"

"He knew them, all of them." She made herself turn.

Mira was tidy, as always, though the wind was fluttering her short, soft brown hair. Her suit was a deep green today, a change from the usual quiet colors she wore. Her eyes were patient and filled with compassion. And understanding.

Eve thought she looked every bit as efficient here, sitting on a stone bench under the denuded branches of an oak, as she did in her elegant office. She was the best criminal and behavioral psychologist New York, and possibly the country, had to offer.

"I appreciate you agreeing to meet me here."

"I remember the grounds from your wedding." Mira smiled. It was difficult to nudge Eve over that first hurdle and into trust. "It's a magnificent space. Carefully planned, lovingly tended."

"I don't get out here much, I guess." Feeling awkward, Eve jammed her hands in her pockets. "I forget to look out the windows when I'm working here."

"You're a focused individual, Eve. That's why you're an excellent cop. You don't come out here often, but I have no doubt you could describe the grounds exactly. You observe instinctively."

"Cop's eyes." Eve shrugged. "Curse or blessing, who knows?"

"You're troubled." Her feelings for Eve always went beyond the professional and tugged at Mira's heart. "Are you going to let me help?"

"It's not me. It's not about me."

But Mira thought it was, partly. The woman inside the cop was disturbed at facing the dead that Roarke had once been intimate with. "Then you're sleeping well? Undisturbed."

"Mostly." Eve turned away again. She didn't want to delve into that area. Mira was one of the few people who knew the details of her past, the memories that came swimming back unexpectedly, the nightmares that plagued and terrified. "Let's let that rest, okay?"

"All right."

"I'm worried about Roarke." She hadn't meant to say it, and regretted it instantly. "That's personal," she continued, turning around again. "I didn't ask you to meet me to discuss that."

Didn't you? Mira thought, but only nodded. "Why did you ask me to meet you?"

"I need a consult on the case. I need a profile. I need help." The discomfort of her position showed in anger in her eyes. "I didn't want to do this, in official surroundings because I'm going to ask you to skirt some of the rules. You're under no obligation to do so, and I'll understand perfectly if you not only refuse but decide to report this request."

Mira's expression, mild and interested, didn't alter by a blink. "Why don't you explain the situation to me, Eve, and let me make up my own mind?"

"The three murders are connected, and the probability that they're linked to a… series of events that took place several years ago is high. The motive is revenge. It's my opinion that Roarke is primary target and that Summerset is being used to get to him. There's circumstantial evidence attached to each murder that points to Summerset, and that evidence is piling up along with the bodies. If I believed he was responsible I'd close the cage door on him myself without a minute's regret, no matter what he means to Roarke. But it's a setup, cleverly planned and executed, and just obvious enough to be insulting to my intelligence."

"You'd like me to do a profile on the killer, and examine Summerset for violent tendencies, unofficially."

"No, I want those official. Black and white, by the book. I want to be able to turn them in to Whitney. I haven't given him a hell of a lot else."

"I'll be happy to do both. You've only to clear it with your commander, get me the data. I can shift it to priority for you."

"I'd appreciate it."

"And the rest?"

Eve's palms went damp. Impatient, she swiped them on the thighs of her slacks. "I have information that is vital to the investigation, and your profile, that I can't – no, that I won't – record in full. I'll only share this information with you under the scope of doctor-patient confidentiality. That protects you, doesn't it?"

Mira lifted her hands, folded her fingers. "Anything you tell me as a patient is privileged. I can't report it."

"And you're protected? Personally, professionally?" Eve insisted.

"I am, yes. How many people are you determined to protect here, Eve?"

"The ones who matter."

Mira smiled now, a full bloom. "Thank you." She held out a hand. "Sit, and tell me."

Eve hesitated, then took the hand Mira offered. "You… when I remembered what had happened to me in that room in Dallas. When I remembered my father coming in drunk, raping me again, hurting me again. When I remembered killing him that night, and I told you, you said it was pointless, even wrong, to punish the child. You said" – she had to clear her throat – "you said I'd killed a monster, and that I'd made myself into something worthwhile, something I had no right to destroy because of what I'd done before."

"You don't still doubt that?"

Eve shook her head, though there were times, there were still times she doubted it. "Did you mean it? Do you really believe there are times, there are circumstances when taking the life of a monster is justified?"

"The state believed so until less than two decades ago when capital punishment was, yet again, abolished."

"I'm asking you, as a person, a doctor, a woman."

"Yes, I believe it. To survive, to protect your life or the life of another."

"Only in self-defense?" Eve's eyes were intense on Mira's, reading every flicker. "Is that the only justification?"

"I couldn't generalize in such a manner, Eve. Each circumstance, each person goes to defining the situation."

"It used to be black and white for me," Eve said quietly. "The law." She held up one fist. "The breaking of it." Then the other. On a long breath, she tapped the two fists together, held them close. "Now… I need to tell you about Marlena."

Mira didn't interrupt. She asked no questions, made no comments. It took Eve twenty minutes to tell it all. She was thorough, and made the effort to be dispassionate. Facts only, without opinion. And when she was finished, she was drained.

They sat in silence, while a few birds chattered, the fountain gurgled, and bruised clouds drifted over the sun.

"To lose a child that way," Mira commented at length. "There is nothing worse to be faced. I can't tell you the men who did that to her deserved to die, Eve. But I can tell you, as a woman, as a mother, that if she had been my child, I would have celebrated their deaths, and I would have sworn my gratitude to their executioner. That isn't scientific, it isn't the law. But it's human."

"I don't know if I'm shielding Roarke because I believe what he did was justice or because I love him."

"Why can't it be both? Oh, you complicate things, Eve."

"I complicate things." She nearly laughed, and pushed up from the bench. "I have three murders that I can't investigate in an open, logical manner unless I want to see my husband locked away for the rest of this life. I've involved my aide, an e-detective I barely know, and you in the duplicity, and I'm busting my ass to keep that idiot Summerset out of lockup. And I complicate things."

"I'm not saying circumstances aren't complicated, but there's no reason for you to internalize as much as you do. There's no need to try to segregate your heart from your intellect."