"I don't. Christ almighty. Jerry?" Vince slumped back in the chair. "Captain McVee said it was Jerry?"

"He did."

"Jesus. Jesus. He'd been on the edge the last few months on the job. Sometimes the edge works for you, b u't… "

"You had some concerns?" Phoebe prompted.

"Yeah, I guess I did. But, you know, I had a lot going on myself, the whole wedding thing. We didn't hang out as much after a tour. But he was a good cop. Jerry had a cool head on the job. Could be hot off it, but on? He was solid."

"There was a woman."

"Yeah." He blew out the word. "He got tangled up with her, and it was like all he could think about. Had this idea they were going to head off together out West-where men were men, and all that. Get themselves a ranch in Montana. I figured that's what they did. He and the woman took off to Montana."

"What was her name?"

"He called her Gwen, or Guinevere. He kept her to himself. I worried…"

"What did you worry about?"

"This doesn't feel right, Lieutenant. I gotta say, it doesn't feel right. He was a cop, a teammate, a friend."

"Captain McVee was in surgery more than three hours."

"Okay." Vince scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "Okay, okay. Listen, it was just when he'd had a couple too many or he wasn't able to see her for a while that he got jumpy. And maybe sometimes he went off on a tangent."

"Such as?"

"He talked about how it'd be easier to just put a bullet in the guyher husband. He didn't mean it, and he'd get right off it again, talking about how they were just going to wait until they had enough money put by for the ranch. Already had a name for it."

"Camelot?"

"Yeah, yeah, 'cause she was Guinevere. He was crazy about her. She was probably stringing him along, and that's what sent him off."

"No, I don't think she was stringing him along. Other friends, family?"

"He got along with everybody in the unit. Thought of them like brothers. He'd even say brothers-in-arms, you know?"

And not a single police officer had been hit when Charlie Johnson's body was riddled with bullets.

"Family outside the job?"

"He had-has, I don't know which-a mother and stepfather, but they weren't close. I think he said they'd moved out to California when he was in his twenties, and he stayed here. He got along," Vince repeated, "but I'd say, except for me, he was kind of a loner. I think he was put out some when I hooked up with Marijay. My wife. Then he got tangled with this woman, and that was it for him."

Phoebe got to her feet. "If he contacts you or if you see him, you need to contact me immediately. You understand that?"

"Lieutenant, if he did what you're saying, he's got to be out of his mind. I've got a wife and a baby. You can believe me when I say, I hear from Jerry, you'll hear from me. I won't take chances with my family."

Phoebe pulled out her phone as she walked out of the house. She saw Duncan leaning against his car, hands in his pockets, looking up at a sky where stars were trying to light through the thinning clouds.

She leaned back against the car with him while she spoke to the team commander, then to the hospital to check on Dave's condition, and finally to Sykes to bring him up to date.

When she was finished, she pocketed her phone and stayed where she was another moment, looking up at those persistent stars. "You're an awfully patient man, Duncan."

"Most things are worth waiting for."

"In an awful way, that's what Walken thinks, too, and he's been waiting a long time for this. The man in there? That was his closest friend. In fact, reading between the lines, I'd say he was Walken's only friend. A loner who got along, hot-tempered off the job, liked to drink, didn't much care for it when his friend got engaged. But he hasn't once gotten in touch with his only friend in going on three years. He has no friends now. That's the way it is for him. That's the way he wants it now. "We have to dig him out, because he's somewhere in this city. This isn't what I do, not what I know how to do best." She pushed her hands through her hair. "So I have to be the patient one, and wait for others to do the real digging."

"I liked to play baseball when I was a kid." Confused, she looked over. "Sorry?"

"I liked to play, and I could wing a ball out of far right and pinpoint it to the cutoff man, even right into second. And I could run like the wind. But I had a bat as green and limp as old celery. So I had to depend on somebody else to hit in the runs. We do what we do, Phoebe."

"I love him more than I did my own father." She rubbed damp and tired eyes. "I hardly remember my daddy. Horsie-back rides and tickling and how he smelled of Dial soap. But I can't hear his voice in my head, and I have to look at his picture now and again to keep his face in there. When I think of fathers, I think of Dave first."

"Come on, baby." He took her hand. "Let's get you home."

"There's nothing more I can do tonight. Just nothing."

"You'll get some sleep, then you'll figure out what to do tomorrow."

"You're going to stay with me." She got in the car, looked up at him. "You said you would."

"Sure, I can do that."

He expected to bunk in Ava's son's room again, so Duncan was surprised when after peeking in on Carly, Phoebe took him by the hand and drew him into her bedroom.

She pressed a finger to her lips as she closed and locked the door behind them. "You're going to have to be very quiet while you make love with me."

"You're the noisy one." He backed her toward the bed. "But if you get too carried away, I'll just gag you."

"Try this instead." She rose on her toes, found his mouth with hers. "God." She let out the word on a sigh. "God, God, I want you all over me. Inside me, around me, on me and under me. I want to be surrounded, Duncan. Surrounded so I can't think of anything else."

He eased her down on the bed, brushed the hair back from her face.

His lips brushed her brow, her cheeks, her jaw. Then they sank into hers. He could feel her relax, inch by inch. A little tremor in the shoulders, then a melting. Her arms lifted so he could slip her shirt off and away. And his hands ran down her sides. Bumped into her gun. "Ah, I think you're armed and dangerous."

"Crap. I forgot." She tapped him back so she could roll, unhook her weapon. She set it, in its holster, on the nightstand.

"You don't just leave it out like that, with Carly around?"

One more little flutter to the heart, she thought, and cupped his face. "No. I have a lockbox, top shelf of my closet. But I think, as the door's locked, it'll be fine there for a little while."

"Okay. Let's see, I think I was just a b o u't… " He pulled her back. "Here," he said before his lips took hers again.

They spoke in whispers as they undressed each other. Then didn't speak at all.

He surrounded her, just as she'd asked, with touch and taste, with heat and motion. In the dark, her hands and lips slid over his skin, and she found what she needed.

Little thrills rising to gnawing aches, aches soothed back to silky pleasures. Time ticked away, and maybe those stars were burning nowbut she didn't need their light. All the terror and tension of the endless day drained.

She lifted to him, and he could hear her sigh and sigh as he filled her. Then it was she who surrounded him, took him in, trapping him in that glorious heat until he was swamped.

He could see her eyes gleaming in the dark, watching him watching her through that exquisite merging of bodies. The thrill of skin to skin, though the rhythm stayed slow and easy, rise and fall. And lips met with a quick and fresh hunger to muffle moans, to swallow gasps. When the rising peaked and the fall was a dive in the dark, he pressed his face into her hair, to draw in its scent like breath.