"You cannot," he told her, "let someone else's emotional baggage cripple you. Even if that someone is your mother." He looked hard at her. "You cannot cripple yourself to teach your mother a lesson."

Helen Thurwell looked mad enough to hit Harper, looked like she would grab him, jerk him around, and punch him. Dillon glared at him, but angry tears were running down. He put his arms around her and pulled her close. Above them, the cats hardly breathed. They were so caught by the drama, they hung halfway in between the window bars. The vicissitudes of humanity were sometimes so overwhelming, the scene they witnessed was so emotionally draining, that when Dillon's father arrived to take his daughter home, the cats felt like three limp dishrags hung to dry in the branches.

21

Crossing the sidewalk quickly to the passenger side of her car, Kate unlocked the door meaning to slide across to the driver's side; hoping she wouldn't be noticed from across the street. Turning to thank Nancy, who had been more than kind to help her, Kate caught her breath:

Nancy came at her fast, pushed her hard across the console to the driver's seat, bruising her leg, and swung in behind her. "Move it! He's coming!"

Kate stared at the girl.

"He's coming. Let me out in a block or two. Give me the coat, maybe I can mislead him."

Kate started the car. For a second, the look in Nancy's dark eyes iced her blood, but then she saw him; he came running from between two buildings. She revved the engine and burned rubber, skidding away from the curb. As he ran beneath a streetlight she saw his face, but at an angle that startled her.

He looked like the waiter who had died in the gallery.

Oh, but she must be wrong. Driving as fast as she dared, she was too busy dodging cars to look again. As she maneuvered past other traffic, the two faces shone in her mind like two portraits flashed on a screen. The same high sloping forehead, the same large nose and thin face.

When she had seen the waiter that night, his looks had startled her. She hadn't known why. She even then must have seen his resemblance to the man who had followed her. Swerving around a corner heading home, she glanced at Nancy.

The woman was shrugging into the coat Kate had shed, pulling the hat down over her face. When Kate was some ten blocks from the restaurant, when she was sure that no car was following, she stopped at a well-lit corner beside an open grocery where Nancy might take shelter and call a cab. Kate had started to thank her when the girl shoved a gun in her ribs.

Her voice was less cultured now, quick and forceful. "He won't follow you now. Move it. Get rolling." The gun was a black automatic. Kate didn't know much about guns. She had no idea whether the safety was on or off, no idea how to tell if it was loaded, though she thought that the clip was in place.

"Where's the jewelry?"

"In… in my apartment."

"Try again. We already tossed your apartment. If we go there now and you can't produce the jewelry, I'll kill you."

"There's a ruby choker in my apartment. I can give you that."

"I have the choker. Where's the rest, the other nine pieces?"

Kate studied the traffic, wanting to jam her foot hard on the gas and swerve into an oncoming car, to cause such a wreck the police would be called and a crowd would gather. Stopping at a signal, staring at the gun, she was afraid to jump out of the car and try to run, afraid the woman would shoot. Warily Kate watched her. What was it about her face, something strangely familiar and unsettling?

The day Nancy Westervelt came to her office, wanting a designer for her new apartment, she had been waiting for Kate not in the reception area but in Kate's private office. Kate had come in to find her standing at the window looking out at the street, not four feet from Kate's desk and file cabinet. Had she been searching the desk?

She looked over defiantly into the woman's dark eyes, trying to imagine Nancy Westervelt's smoothly coiffed hair frizzled in a black cloud, imagine her eyes heavily lined with black, and thick, nearly black lipstick. When the light changed, Kate nearly ran into the car ahead: she was looking at the young woman from the village, at the woman who had come here to rob her.

Turning onto Stockton, where she had to stop for a cable car, she looked over at her passenger, trying to ignore the gun pointed at her. Surely, above the gun barrel, Consuela Benton looked back at her.

She should have known. Kate remembered cloying perfume, heavy, cheap jewelry, a low-cut tank top tight across her breasts-she should have known at once, there in her office or certainly the minute the woman walked into the restaurant. But this woman was a master of change. From a frowzy teenager to this sophisticate. Who would guess? Moving belatedly ahead with the traffic, she felt as if she was in some sadistic fun house, felt so off balance she nearly did wreck the car, skidding sideways into the next lane.

"Watch your driving! Answer me! Are they in your office?" Her voice was shriller, harsh with impatience.

"I rented another safe deposit box. After you stole my key and check carbon. Do you think the bank doesn't have your fingerprints? Do you think the police won't-"

"I wore gloves. You did not rent a new deposit box, not in that bank or any bank in this city."

Kate laughed. "That bank knows the story. You won't learn where from them; you won't get into that box."

Consuela poked her hard with the gun. "I'll ask you one last time. Where is the jewelry? You answer me or our friend will take over. He's directly behind us, in the gray car. Are the jewels in your office?"

"You're welcome to look if you like." Ignoring honking horns and skidding brakes Kate swung a U-turn in the middle of the block and headed across town for her office. Her head was pounding. She felt ice cold, then the next moment hot and flushed. She wondered if she could swerve the car hard and wrest the gun away. She wished she knew more about firearms. Driving in silence, trying to think of a plan, then at last pulling up beside the darkened office building, she felt totally defeated. She knew nothing about how to defend herself. As the woman instructed, Kate turned down into the underground parking garage.

In the greasy yellow glow of the vapor bulbs, the garage was empty of all but a few cars. Consuela made her slide back across and get out the passenger side. The woman walked so close to her they could have been joined at the hip, the gun under her coat pressed against Kate like a scene from some gangster movie. Kate tried to imagine kneeing her in the groin, jabbing the heel of her hand to the girl's chin or nose, hurting her bad enough to crumple her. Imagined herself grabbing the gun- imagined herself, untrained and uncertain, making a mess of it and ending up shot, maybe dead. Inadequate did not half describe her sense of frustration; she hated her ineptitude and cowardliness. Ringing for the elevator and moving inside it with Consuela, she punched the fifth floor.

Unlocking the outer office door and switching on the lights, Kate crossed the reception area, with its pale, deeply carved carpet and its mix of antique and contemporary furnishings, its handsome potted plants and rich oil paintings. When she didn't move fast enough, the gun barrel poked her in the back. Unlocking the door to her office, she stepped directly to the file cabinet and unlocked that. There was no point in pretending the jewels weren't there. Opening the bottom drawer, she reached to the back, drawing out the plain little cardboard box.

"Open it. Pull the tape off."

Reaching for her desk scissors, Kate imagined stabbing Consuela more quickly than Consuela could pull the trigger, but instead, of course, she obeyed, cutting the tape and opening the lid, removing the little suede evening bag. Opening its clasp, she tipped out the nine pieces of jewelry onto the blotter. The silver and topaz choker she had worn to Charlie's party. A ruby pendant, two diamond bracelets, a gold and onyx necklace, two rings, one set with diamonds, one with a sapphire, and an emerald bracelet and choker, the jewels and heavy gold settings flashing in the overhead lights, the strange medieval design fascinating Kate even now.