"That explains why the defense team didn't care about you. They only needed one of those bastards for a hung jury. So what happened in that jury room? How did they get a unanimous verdict?"

"I can't tell you any more, Riker. I won't lie to you, and I won't drag you into this."

He leaned down to pick up the leather jacket he had dropped on the floor, and now he pulled out a gun much larger than the one she had recently concealed in a cushion of the couch. With just a cursory understanding of his affliction, she knew it was madness for Riker to carry this weapon.

"Jo, I'm the one with the gun, and you're trying to protect me!"

He looked down at the revolver in his hand. "I took this away from MacPherson tonight. Is he the one you followed into the parking garage?" "Where is he now?"

"Marvin Argus took him away. That's his whole job in life, isn't it, protecting the jury? Maybe that's why he pulled his men off your surveillance detail. Well, I guess I'll be sticking around for a while."

Before he could ask any more questions about MacPherson, Jo selected an open wound that might distract him. "Does your doctor know what causes your seizures? Any physical problems?" She already suspected that the pathology was trauma related, but men were rarely open to this suggestion.

"Seizure," he said, as if the word might be new to him. "You mean like a fit? I don't throw fits. I'm thinkin' it could've been a heart attack." He seemed to prefer this more life-threatening explanation. Of course he did. Men had heart attacks, women had fits.

"Riker, you know I've seen it happen before. That day you lost control of the van."

He shook his head. No, he had not lost control; he had no frailties. All this was said with the set of his jaw, and then he turned away from her. Johanna was accustomed to this old obstacle, old as time. Men were the vainest creatures on the planet. Obviously, he believed that he had successfully concealed the previous episode.

Her first day on the job, training day, he had nearly wrecked a company van. There had also been a loud noise on that occasion, the sound of one car hitting another with the bang of two-ton missiles meeting head-on. The van had suffered no impact, though it had spun out of control and wound up with both front wheels on the sidewalk before Johanna could pull up the emergency brake. She had opened the passenger door and hit the pavement running to check on the other two drivers. Both of them had been in better shape than Riker. She recalled that awful moment when she had turned back to see him frozen behind the windshield. In the throes of a seizure, his lips had turned blue for lack of oxygen, and every cord on his neck had been strained to a rope of flesh. The seizure had passed off before she had time to climb back into the van. He was already breathing again, gulping air, and waving off her attentions, insisting that he was just fine. Riker had not driven a van since that day, and they had never spoken of the incident.

And there would be no more discussion tonight. He busied himself arranging couch cushions in front of the door to her rooms. Riker was planning to lay his body down as a human shield to protect her.

She stared at the revolver he had lain on the glove table by the door. This was fresh proof of her trauma theory. The cylinder chambers that she could see were empty. It was not loaded. Of course not – a gunshot would have paralyzed him. He had come to protect her with only the bluff of an empty revolver, and Johanna regarded that useless weapon with tenderness and great awe.

Special Agent Marvin Argus stared at the sleeping man on the hotel-room couch. He had tired out MacPherson with the argument for the witness protection program. Or perhaps the man was faking, escaping into feigned sleep. The runaway juror seemed to dislike him for no reason that Argus could fathom.

After packing up the meager belongings from his apartment, MacPherson had been willing enough to come to this hotel under FBI escort, but he stubbornly refused to leave town. Argus blamed Dr. Apollo for giving this fragile little man a backbone.

The doctor's guards were divided in their duties. One man was posted on the staircase between floors, and the other rode atop the only elevator in service tonight. This was not correct procedure for a stakeout. He should have had more men, but that would have meant answering too many questions. No requests would be made to the New York bureau. No local agents should learn about the captured juror until the Reaper had been taken into custody, dead or alive.

The agent thought better of lighting up his cigar in this hotel room. MacPherson had claimed to be allergic to smoke and probably lied about that. Little prig. However, Argus's future depended upon staying on good terms with this man for a while longer.

He turned down the volume on the radio, then pulled a curtain aside and craned his neck to see the sky. It was getting light. Dawn was only hours away. Dear God, how he wanted a smoke – and sleep. When had he last slept through the night? He had only dozed the night before. In the past hour, he had downed five cups of coffee – not enough, but there was more on the way. That bellman would take at least ten minutes more to fetch it, at least that long.

An infusion of nicotine might help to stave off the drowsiness, that and cold fresh air. The agent opened the window and stepped out onto the fire escape, then sat down on the metal grate and unwrapped his cigar. Leaning back against the wall, he exhaled the first blue cloud of smoke. His eyelids weighed ten pounds each. Argus glanced at his watch as if that would hurry the next pot of coffee.

The Chelsea Hotel was an inspired choice, now that he was certain that the Reaper kept close tabs on Dr. Apollo. The death of the homeless man had proven that much.

He tried to pay attention to the news broadcast from the radio on the other side of the open window, but his head lolled to one side, and it seemed that his eyes had only closed for a moment. Surely it had been no more than a minute. The window closed behind him with an angry slam, and the cigar in his hand was still smoking when he started awake. Damn you, MacPherson, you and your phony smoke allergy, Argus could no longer hear the radio. The double-pane glass had cut off the sound. All he had to listen to was the sporadic static of cars passing by on the street below. He pulled out his cell phone to make sure that his men were in place and alert, trying the agent in the stairwell first, then the one on the elevator, who gave him two welcome pieces of news: Riker was visiting Johanna Apollo's floor – one less juror to worry about – and Argus's pot of coffee had arrived. There would be no more communication, no sound or movement, while they waited for a stone killer to walk into their arms. As Argus concluded his last call, his gaze was drifting down toward the street. It was a fight to keep his eyes open as he folded his phone into a pocket. So tired.

He fixed his gaze upon the building directly across the street, determined not to let his eyes close one more time. And so he never saw the frantic shadow on the curtain behind him, arms waving. Nor did he notice a splatter of red dots appear in the next instant, staining the material with blood just beyond the glass. His eyes had closed before the drapes were pulled down from their rod, clutched in the death grip of a falling man, as the horror show was unveiled, blood on the walls, the furniture and the floor.

Argus would not wake for three more hours. A hotel maid would be the first to discover the body at nine o'clock, and she would call the police.