Well, the man was not in his right mind, and she blamed Dr. Apollo for this. Yes, it was the doctor's fault. Mallory fixed this thought in her mind and pushed away the idea that she was cheating the pieces to hold Riker harmless and blameless.

At the end of the hour, when the last of the patients had filed out, Riker entered the next room to catch the psychiatrist unawares amid a clutter of wet tissues, ashtrays and paper coffee cups. This was Jo transformed. Earlier, he had only glimpsed her from a distance and only the back of her shawl. Most of his observation time had been devoted to the long expanse of nylon stockings below the short skirt – oh, and the high heels, stilettos, his personal favorites. But now he was staring at her wine-dark lipstick, and it shocked him. Until this moment, he had only seen her face naked.

"Hey, Jo."

She was folding metal chairs and leaning them against the wall when she turned to see him standing near the door. Guilt was there to read in her face and her body language. Her head lowered and her hands folded in prayer, as if asking forgiveness for her crimes. His partner would have loved this moment, but Riker was not enjoying his role this afternoon. He was at war with himself. Always inexplicably happy to be in the same room with Jo, he was also unsettled by suspicion, a symptom of Mallory's poison.

Aw, lady, what have you done?

He kept his silence, waiting for Jo to speak. There was a rhythm to an interrogation and it came as naturally to him as breathing. He was already predicting her opening gambit and laying plans to stun her and knock her sensibilities loose from their moorings.

"So you've read everything," she said. "And now you want an explanation." She slowly settled down on a chair, head bowed in the time-honored posture of the police interview.

How many times had she been through this before?

His face was somber as he walked toward her. "You know who the Reaper is."

Jo shook her head.

"That wasn't a question, lady. Agent Kidd told you. That's what brought you to New York. The Reaper's here, isn't he?"

"Timothy never told me."

"Then you worked it out on your own."

"You'd have to be as paranoid as Timothy to – "

"Been there," said Riker. "The Reaper was the guy he met in the liquor store. I believe his story." And now he saw shock in her eyes – and something else. Fresh guilt? Yes, and he nodded to say, I can read your damn mind. Aloud, he said, "But you didn't believe him, did you, Jo? Not then.

Not till he died."

"And now you know all my secrets." She smiled to pass this off as banter. "I failed him – badly."

"What about Bunny, that poor homeless bastard? What was that all about? Did you use him for a sparring partner? Is that how it started? Just a little practice for the main event?"

"That's not fair."

"Yeah, life sucks." He stood before her, not bending one bit, forcing her to look up at him as he was looking out at her – as if across a great gulf. "And what about Mugs? I think that cat keeps you in a constant state of alert. Hard to tell when he'll go ballistic, isn't it? Good practice for a scary situation. Or is Mugs your burglar alarm? Wouldn't take much to set him off."

"And sometimes a cat is just a cat. I love Mugs, I do." "Then don't take chances, Jo. Live a long life. 'Cause if you die, you know what'll happen to that cat. If you're not around to protect him, he'll get kicked in the teeth by the next cop he mauls. Nobody's gonna take him to the vet and put him down with a nice painless needle. Whoever finds him first is gonna stomp him into the rug. Or maybe Mugs will get away with just a few missing teeth and some cracked ribs."

She rose from the chair, then picked up a plastic bag and collected a fallen tissue from the floor, clearly announcing the end of this conversation. Not so fast, Jo, not quite yet.

"I won't be coming back to work." She avoided his eyes, and her voice became more formal, as if he were a stranger, just one more cop to deal with. "I left my resignation with Miss Byrd."

"Yeah, I heard. So you'll want your suitcase back." "Yes." She walked about the room, bending low to pick up the cups and to empty the ashtrays into a plastic bag. "If you don't mind, could you drop it off at my hotel?"

"No, I don't think so." His voice was flat, giving away nothing, as he pulled one of Ned's business cards from his wallet. "You'll have to come and get it." He scrawled his address on the back of the card, then left it on the metal chair. "My place, seven o'clock. I'll cook. You bring the wine."

Jo walked everywhere in grace, and so the stumble gave her away. Knowing his preference for cheap bourbon and beer, she would probably bet her stock portfolio that he did not own a corkscrew, and now her thoughts must go to the wine in the bottom drawer of her armoire.

Riker ambled across the floor, taking his own time. He paused at the far end of the room and turned around to stare at her. All the trappings of a cop fell away for a moment, and he was only a man, as easily killed as any other. And she could kill him – with words, a look. He wanted to say something to her, something – personal. Ducking his head a bare inch, as if expecting a hail of laughter for this foolish unspoken idea, he held her glance a moment longer before turning back to the door. These days he left every room with a bang – not so loud as a paralyzing gunshot – just a satisfying slam that rattled every door in its frame.

Chapter 9

RIKER COULD NOT SAY HOW HE HAPPENED TO FIND himself so far uptown in the neighborhood of wealth. From long habit, his feet knew the route of subway stairs and sidewalks leading to this Park Avenue apartment building. A liveried doorman greeted him with genuine affection, and another fiver traveled from Riker's pocket to his, though there was nothing new to report. Even at this posh address, betrayal was cheap and affordable.

Riker stepped back to the curb and looked up at one lighted window. A pale woman hovered there – expectant. This was the mother of the boy who had ambushed him. Her face was so much like her son's, though she lacked that wild-eyed look of crazy all the time. Her eyes were only fearful – of him. That much detail could not be seen on such a high floor; he simply knew this to be true.

And the woman knew.

If her child came home again, Riker would kill him.

As if reading his thoughts, the woman shrank back from the window, and Riker bowed his head in the manner of a shamed terrorist who has brought his bomb to the wrong door. He carried himself away from this innocent woman and walked on down the broad avenue – a man waiting to explode.

Mallory's small tan car pulled up in front of the Park Avenue building. The wealthy tenants, a man and a woman, withdrew to the safety of the lobby, preferring to communicate via the doorman, their conduit to the outside world. Over the past six months, they had grown skittish and shy of being waylaid by reporters, and they had come to fear police. Their faces were pale from infrequent forays into the sunlight.

As Mallory left her car and approached the doorman, she glanced at the couple on the other side of the glass entryway. They were staring at her, discussing her. Then they caught her eye, and now they fled across the lobby toward the elevator. She wondered if they knew about the doorman's profits and how easily he sold their private lives.

"Mallory." The doorman moved toward her, edging sideways like a crab, wanting no one from the building's interior to see the folding money that he anticipated. "You told me Riker wouldn't be back." He feigned a sigh. "Ah, those poor people. I don't think they can handle any more of this."