"No. I… Yes." Cavanaugh said. "I want to go back to Wyoming."

Jamie looked surprised.

"I'm so confused"-the word surprised him-"so afraid of what's changing inside me, I want to go back to Jackson Hole and never leave. But if I give in and hide, I'll never be any good to you or me or anybody else. How can I pretend to be close to anyone if I let John die? He wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me. If he gets killed…"

"We won't let that happen."

"That's right, by God. But I'm not sure how you're going to feel being around someone who shows signs of fear."

"Signs of being human, you mean?"

"I'll try to be as dependable as you've been." Cavanaugh breathed deeply, working to concentrate on what needed to be done. "Is anybody following us?"

Jamie checked the rearview mirror. "Traffic looks normal."

"Head over to the park where I met John this morning."

"What's at-"

"I phoned him at his condo. His wife died last year. He lives alone. That's where they held a gun to him when he talked to me. That's the logical spot for him to be held prisoner."

13

They left the Taurus in a parking garage and followed the shadowy jogging path to the opposite edge of the park. There, concealed by trees, they peered across a busy street toward a brightly lit condominium building.

"The sixth floor," Cavanaugh said. "On the right. The fourth unit from the end."

Jamie adjusted her gaze. "Lights in one window." "That's the living room. John loves his view of the park." "Not tonight. The curtains are closed." "The window next to it, on the right-any lights in his bedroom?"

"The curtains are closed there also, but no lights. Any other bedrooms?"

"No." Cavanaugh wished they could get in the car and drive away. "After John's wife died, he sold their house and moved here. Wanted a simpler life, he said. Became kind of a hermit, reading his Bible when he wasn't hunting bad guys."

"What's the arrangement of the rooms?"

"Past the front door, there's a corridor that leads into the living room." Talking about what he knew helped distract him from what he was feeling. "As you go along the corridor, there's an archway on the left, leading into a small kitchen. An arch on the other side of the kitchen goes into the living room. To the left of the living room is the door to the bedroom."

"Bathroom?"

"Off the bedroom. On the left."

Cavanaugh's attention quickened as a shadow moved beyond the closed curtains in the living room.

"How many people are watching him, do you think?" Jamie asked.

"At least two, so one can sleep while the other's on guard."

The details of tradecraft continued to help distract him from his emotions. "He'll be tied up in a chair in the living room. That way, the bedroom's all theirs, so they can spell each other and take naps."

"But how do we get him out?"

As Jamie spoke, a man and woman approached the building's entrance and went into the gleaming lobby. Visible through floor-to-ceiling windows, a security guard stood behind a counter. He spoke to the couple, picked up a phone, said something into it, nodded, and pressed a button. That unlocked a gate on the right, allowing the couple to go farther into the lobby and reach a bank of elevators.

"For that matter," Jamie added, "how do we get into the building?"

"The law says there have to be other exits in case of an emergency. We can always go around to the back, find one, and pick the lock."

"Which you haven't shown me how to do yet."

"I've been remiss, 1 admit, but we don't have time to make up for that now. Anyway, in this busy neighborhood, there's always a chance we'll be noticed. We can't help John if we're in jail. Why don't we walk up to that corner store and buy some cigarettes."

"Cigarettes? What are you talking about? You don't smoke."

"I used to when I first joined Protective Services. Duncan put a stop to that. I can still hear him scolding me: 'How can you hope to protect somebody when you're fumbling around, trying to light a cigarette?'"

"And now you're going to start smoking again?"

14

The condo building's entrance was thirty feet from the street. Shrubs flanked a walkway. Half a dozen stone benches provided a further friendly appearance.

Cavanaugh chose the bench nearest the street, motioned for Jamie to join him, and opened the pack of cigarettes. "Smoke?" he asked. "What's gotten into you?"

"Give it a try. Be daring. It'll help pass the time." He handed her a cigarette and lit it, managing to keep his hand steady. "I haven't the faintest idea how to hold this," she said. "Doesn't matter." Cavanaugh lit a cigarette for himself. Jamie coughed.

"Hey, I didn't say to inhale the thing. Just puff on it a little and blow out the smoke… Not so quickly." "Tastes awful."

"Doesn't it, though. I wonder what I ever liked about this." Two women passed them and glanced away in disapproval. "These days, with so many nonsmoking areas, it's the most natural sight imaginable for two people to be huddled outside a building, awkwardly puffing on cigarettes," Cavanaugh said. "We look like we were visiting somebody in the building and got banished down here so we wouldn't stink up the living room when we absolutely had to get a nicotine fix."

A man and woman shook their heads in pity. The next couple actually looked sympathetic, as if on occasion they'd been forced to smoke outside also.

"All right, so you found a way to make us an acceptable presence outside the building," Jamie said. "Now what?" "Do what Prescott does. Listen and learn." People came and went, their conversations filled with references to domineering bosses, newly discovered restaurants, cheap plane tickets to the Bahamas, and women who ought to stop flirting with other people's husbands.

Five minutes passed.

"Gosh, I can't believe we're done with those cigarettes so quickly. We'd better light up again," Cavanaugh said.

"If I get yellow stains on my fingers…" Jamie said.

Cavanaugh gave her another cigarette, struck a match for her, and pretended to ignore two taxis that stopped at the curb. Each cab discharged four well-dressed people. After lighting a new cigarette for himself, he glanced up at the night sky, pretending to ignore the eight people hurrying past.

"What time is it?" a woman asked urgently. "Almost ten? Thank God we made it. Sandy said she and Ted'd be home from the movie by ten-fifteen."

"How's she going to manage that?" a man asked.

"Pretend she's sick, so they don't go to dinner. Isn't she clever? Her sister's going to let us in. Imagine the look on Ted's face when we all shout 'Surprise.'"

They crowded into the lobby, several of them speaking at once to the security guard, who made a phone call, nodded, and buzzed them through.

"Poor Ted," Jamie muttered as she blew out smoke.

Through the windows, Cavanaugh was able to see the console above the elevator the group used. Numbers flashed, indicating the floors the elevator passed. He was too far away to read the numbers, but he could count the times the console flashed. Seventeen. On the eighteenth, the number remained steady. Add another number for the ground floor, he told himself. They're on nineteen.

Flicking ashes from his cigarette, he noticed a car with a domino's pizza sign stopping in the building's delivery zone. A gangly, bespectacled driver got out, lugging an armful of pizza boxes in an insulated wrapper.

"Let's see where these pizzas are going," Cavanaugh told Jamie. As the driver came closer, Cavanaugh stood, put on a convincing smile, and said, "Hi. We thought we'd come down for a smoke and head you off at the pass. Unit six twenty-eight." That was the number of John's unit.