"I heard your show last night," said Riker. "Leave that poor bastard alone."

"There's something you should know about this juror, MacPherson." "Your three minutes are up. Don't go near Jo, not on or off the air." He pointed to the crazy woman behind the window. "If she can get through that lock – I can."

After leaving the studio, he paused at the open door of the sound booth to speak with the young woman inside. She had freckles, and that broke his heart. "You should quit this job," he said. "Just walk away."

"I can't." Her eyes had a hint of gratitude, and mild surprise was also there. Kindness would be something rare to her these days. She was like a child on the verge of tears, though she was smiling when she said, "I want to be famous."

Riker nodded, silently responding with Ian Zachary's words in his head. Then you've got to kill somebody.

Chapter 11

ON THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE THE RADIO STATION, RIKER was greeted by a small band of excited people. Their outstretched hands held pens and autograph books. Disappointment set in as they quickly identified him as a nobody, then turned their attentions back to the door, waiting for someone more worthy, somebody famous.

Mallory's tan sedan was not among the vehicles along the curb. Riker focused on the one parked some distance away. Nothing about this automobile would set it apart from the rest, but the suit and tie of the man behind the wheel was the standout feature of a security detail. After the midnight hour, this was no longer a neighborhood of suits. Riker approached the car at a blind-side angle, then ripped open the door and slid into the front seat beside a startled FBI agent.

"I wanna see Marvin Argus, right here, right nowl" While waiting for Argus, the time passed in easy conversation with the local FBI man, whose military service was thirty years behind him, though he still wore the crew cut and retained the hard body of his army days. Agent Hennessey was not much of a drinker and liked the early morning hours best, but the two men did find a common ground in their hatred of divorce lawyers.

From force of habit, Riker cultivated every contact with the New York bureau. Tonight, establishing rapport had been easy, almost instant – thanks to all the old newspaper headlines on his ambush by a psychotic teenager. So, quite naturally, the two men discussed the lighter side of getting shot in the line of duty. Agent Hennessey had a bullet wound of his own. He assured Riker that come summer, bathing suit weather, the scars would be magnets for bikini-clad cop groupies. More bonding occurred after discovering that they were both addicts. Two cigarette embers glowed in the dark of the car, and Riker learned that Hennessey's bureau chief was not a happy man these days, not since Special Agent Marvin Argus had blown into town from Chicago with his own crew. The man stopped short of making derogatory remarks about a fellow agent. But then, Hennessey had never met Argus.

"You're in for a treat," said Riker. "When he smiles, you'll wanna deck him, but you won't know why. I keep my hands in my pockets when I talk to the guy."

Finally, Marvin Argus arrived in a large white sedan with rental plates. He pulled over to the curb only two feet from the New York agent's front bumper. This earned him a slow shake of the head from Hennessey, for Argus had just parked his white elephant in the middle of a covert detail. The man from Chicago was broadly smiling as he approached the other agent's car, then leaned down to the open window on the driver's side. "So Riker spotted you, huh? Well, forget it, Hennessey. You're not in any trouble."

Many obscenities could be read into the grim, tight line of Hennessey's mouth, for he was not actually in need of this magnanimous forgiveness from an out-of-towner, an interloper with no authority over him.

Riker nodded his goodnight to the man beside him, then opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the pavement. "Argus, follow me." And because the Chicago agent did not appear to understand a direct order, he jacked up the volume, shouting, "Move! Now!" As they walked away from the car, Hennessey made a thumbs-up gesture. Riker had just earned some currency with this local fed.

"So," said Argus, "you got something for me?"

"Keep it down." Riker glanced back at the gallery of fans clustered in front of the door to the radio station. When they were beyond earshot, he turned on the man, saying, "You lied about Agent Kidd. He was never Jo's patient."

"Is that what she said? Tim had regular appointments with the lady – four times a week during office hours. That sounds like a doctor-patient relationship to me."

"That only tells me you were following Kidd – spying on one of your own guys."

"He was unstable," said Argus. "Everybody knew – "

"You think getting tailed by his own people might've made him a little crazier?"

Argus averted his face, signaling a lie in the making, but then he shook his head and looked Riker in the eye. "After Timmy Kidd was murdered, I questioned that woman for hours and hours, five, six interviews, and she'd never tell me what they talked about on those visits. She was keeping a doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Did she ever spell that out for you?"

"No, but I still say she was treating Tim."

Riker put more faith in Jo's story. Agent Kidd was always Timothy to her – his friend – never Tim or Timmy. Marvin Argus had hardly known the murdered man.

"Shrinks," said the lying fed. "They'll never give you a straight answer about a patient, not even a dead one. What else did Johanna say?"

Riker shook his head. He was here to get information, not give it away. "Kidd was based in D.C. I think he could've found a psychiatrist closer to home. Not one more lie. You got that? You still don't know why Kidd was in Chicago, do you?"

Argus shrugged this off. "He didn't report to me – not directly."

Not at all.

"And Jo was never a suspect," said Riker.

"Wrong, and the Chicago cops will back me up on this. She was the prime suspect for Timmy's murder. If I hadn't taken her into the witness protection program, she'd still be in police custody. Even the damn cops knew that Tim was nuts. This is the way they figured it before they lost the homicide to us. Only his own doctor – Dr. Apollo – could get that close to a flaming paranoid, close enough to slit his throat. And a little paranoia wouldn't hurt you right now, either. You couldn't play it quiet like I asked. No, you had to play cop. Well, you're not on the force anymore, so be real careful about who sidles up to you." He tucked his business card into the pocket of Riker's leather jacket. "And whatever Johanna tells you, bring it to me."

"Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen."

A black limousine sailed past them, then rolled to a stop in front of the radio station. The street door opened, and a lean figure in a hooded sweatshirt emerged from the building. The fans converged on him, and he signed their autograph books before climbing into the backseat of the limo. The long black car pulled away from the curb, followed at a discreet distance by Agent Hennessey. Marvin Argus ran toward his own vehicle, planning to join the parade. And the fans quickly melted away, leaving Riker alone on the sidewalk. Well, not entirely alone.

He stared at the pavement, watching a stealthy shadow coming up behind his own. Without turning around, he said, "Mallory, you're overpaid." As she came abreast of him, he held up a crumpled ball of papers, her falsified dossier on his life. "I found a few mistakes in this." "So Zachary made you an offer? You're on his payroll?" "No, but nice try. You might've run that past me before you set me up." He turned toward the street and the distant cavalcade of departing vehicles. "The FBI hates Ian Zachary. So how does he rate a security surveillance?" "I arranged that," said Mallory. "I sent a few death threats to the local feds so they'd keep an eye on him for me." "Mallory, you can't – " "I can't be everywhere at once," she said. "Up till now, I've been playing the game by myself."