"I don't remember," she said weakly.

"Come on," he scoffed. "You remember everything. You have a mind like a steel trap."

"I don't remember," she repeated, staring at him. With a shock she realized that the expression in his eyes was one of disdain… disgust… even rage. Yes, it was mostly rage, but not the normal heat of temper. Joe Mackenzie's rage was ice-cold, and all the more frightening because of it. He was looking at her as if he could destroy her without regret. He didn't believe her!

The enormity of that realization almost choked her. As it was, a huge knot in her chest swelled until she could scarcely breathe, until her heart was beating with slow, painful effort. Had their situations been reversed she would have given him her complete, unqualified trust without hesitation, because, despite the evidence, she knew he would never betray his country. Evidently he believed her capable of doing just that. Her thought processes were orderly and logical, but all of a sudden a staggering instinctive knowledge filled her: she would trust him because she had been fascinated by him, intensely involved with learning about him as a man because she loved him, while for him their time together had been purely physical. He hadn't bothered to learn about her as a person because he didn't care.

In shock, she withdrew. She didn't move physically, but she had been reaching out to him mentally, and now she slammed her mind's door on those thoughts. She pulled all her reactions inward, bolting them inside in an effort to reestablish her emotional safeguards. It was probably too late, but the human animal's instincts were always to survive, and so she obeyed those instincts. Her face went smooth and expressionless, and she stared back at him with eyes as blank as glass. She couldn't afford to give him even a sliver of herself.

"What were you working on?" he repeated.

"I don't remember." Even her voice was flat. She had so desperately clamped down on her emotions that none of them stood a chance of escaping. Just as emotionlessly she said, "I'm going to assume I'm under suspicion of sabotage."

"We haven't said that," Captain Hodge replied.

"Nor have you said that I'm not, and this feels very much like an interrogation." She fastened her gaze on him, because she couldn't bear to look at Joe. She didn't know if she could ever look at Joe again. Later, when she was alone, she would regroup and take stock, do a damage assessment, but for right now she felt as if everything in her would shatter if she had to look at him. The pain was just too great; she couldn't handle it, so she had to ignore it.

"We couldn't find any malfunction at all in the laser on Captain Wade's aircraft," she said, and even managed a little bit of pride in the evenness of her tone. It was as flat as the EEG line of a corpse. "We all talked it over. Yates Korleski, the team leader, was going to talk to Colonel Mackenzie tonight after he'd thought about it a bit longer, but we think the problem is in the computer program."

Captain Hodge looked mildly interested. "What kind of problem are you talking about, Ms. Evans?"

"We don't know. We want to compare the working program with the original to tell us if any changes have been made on the program we're actually using."

"And if there are changes?"

"Then we find out what those changes are."

"Whose idea was it to verify the program?"

"Mine."

"What made you think of it?"

"It was a process of elimination. The computer program is about all that's left that could be wrong."

"But the program was working perfectly before you arrived. It would be a major feather in your cap if you solved a problem of this magnitude, wouldn't it, Ms. Evans?"

She didn't flinch, just continued to stonily watch him. "I didn't sabotage the program so I could have the glory of finding the problem."

"I didn't accuse you of doing so. I merely asked if it would be a feather in your cap if you pinpointed a major flaw in a project this large and important."

"I already have a good professional reputation, Captain. That's why I'm on the team."

"But you weren't an original member, so evidently you weren't good enough for that. Did you resent not being picked in the beginning?"

"I didn't know about it, so I couldn't be resentful. I was working on something else. The Night Wing project was already in full swing before I finished my own project I only became available a month ago. That's verifiable," she added before he could ask.

"Hmmm." He studied the notes he had on his clipboard a moment longer, then looked up with a thin smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I believe that's all I have to ask you for now, Ms. Evans. You may go. Oh-you're restricted to the base. It wouldn't look good if you were caught trying to leave."

"Are my telephone calls also restricted?"

"Do you need to call someone?" he asked without answering her question. "An attorney, perhaps?"

"Do I need one?"

He gave her that thin smile again. "We haven't pressed any charges yet."

He just had to put that "yet" in there, she noticed distantly, but it didn't affect her. "You aren't filing charges but I'm restricted to base. Let me remind you that I'm a civilian, Captain Hodge, not a part of the military."

"And let me remind you, Ms. Evans, that you are on a military base and this is a military matter. If necessary, we can hold you in the brig for the maximum length of time before charges have to be formally filed. A lot of this can be checked out by then, and you may be exonerated, but if you insist on spending the time behind bars, we can accommodate you."

"You've made your point."

"I thought I had."

Caroline got up and concentrated on her legs. She made certain they didn't wobble, that they moved when she told them to. She didn't look at Joe as she walked out of the office, or at burly Sergeant Vrska on duty in the outer office. Evidently the good sergeant left only when the colonel did.

They would talk to Cal, and he would verify everything she had told them, which would force them to accept that their precious security sensors could and had malfunctioned. Perhaps there had been a major foul-up in security and two ID tags had been issued with the same bar code. Perhaps someone had been entering the work area with a duplicate of her tag and had indeed been sabotaging the computer program, but questioning Cal would force them to admit that it wasn't her.

She wasn't worried about being charged with sabotage, though enduring the captain's questions hadn't been a pleasant experience. But she might never recover from the look in Joe's eyes and the realization that he didn't trust her, that he believed her capable of sabotage.

She had made a monumental, colossal fool of herself. Despite the superior capability of her brain, she had made the fundamental feminine mistake of assuming that making love with a man signaled a commitment from him. No, not making love, having sex. That was another mistake she had made, assigning too much importance to the act. To men it was the simple gratification of a physical appetite, like eating. No emotional baggage was involved. She had made love; he had had sex. She had given herself to him, heart, soul and body, and he had given her pleasure in return but nothing of himself beyond the temporary use of his own body. Magnificent as his body was, she had wanted more. She had thought she was getting more.

Oh, she hadn't gone so far as to think he was in love with her, but she had still thought he cared, at least a little. But she had been confusing sexual technique with emotions. He had none, at least none that she could reach. He was always controlled, his inner self firmly locked away from everyone except his immediate family. She was beginning to see the wisdom of that. Right now she would give anything if her own emotions had been that protected, so she wouldn't be about to collapse and curl up in a fetal knot from the pain of it. She would do so if she thought it would ease the pain, but she knew it wouldn't. There was no ease.