"Relax, Antonia. "He smiled at her. "I'll be very good."

"You're not going in there tonight, are you?"

He shook his head. "I'll give her some time. Besides, I hate barf."

"Yeah, right, with all you've seen in your career?" She started to say something, then just heaved a long sigh. "I'm trusting you."

It was progress, Ty thought. A Winter hadn't trusted him in months.

Antonia climbed into a taxi that had been idling farther down the street, and Ty watched it negotiate the crooked street, the oversize cars parked in too-small spaces, the potholes, the kids on skateboards.

He'd never had a thing for Antonia. It was always Carine.

Always and forever.

Four

Val Carrera learned about Louis Sanborn's murder when she flipped through the Washington Post over her morning coffee, and it pissed her off. A man was dead, and her husband hadn't bothered to tell her he was involved. He was in Boston. It wasn't like he was on a secret military mission. He could have called her.

But here she was, once again, on a need-to-know basis, with Manny Carrera deciding what she needed to know and her having to live with it.

Bastard.

The details in the article were sketchy. It said photographer Carine Winter found the body when she got back from her lunch break. It said the Rancourts had hired Manny to analyze their personal security needs and make recommendations, and, most important, to train them and their employees-of which Louis San-born was one-in the basics of emergency medicine and survival in various types of environments and conditions. After their scare in the White Mountains last fall, the Rancourts said, they wanted to be more self-reliant.

"What a crock," Val muttered over her paper. "Damn phonies."

She hadn't liked the Rancourts since Manny had pulled them off Cold Ridge on a weekend he was supposed to be resting, having a good time. Sterling-who'd name a kid Sterling?-and Jodie Rancourt had donned expensive parkas and boots and trekked up the ridge, never mind that they didn't know what in hell they were doing. They got a dose of high winds, cold temperatures and slippery rocks and damn near died up there.

"They should be Popsicles," Val grumbled.

Instead it was Hank Callahan and the PJs to the rescue, although Val was of the opinion that someone else could have done the job. But that wasn't the way it was with Manny, North or Callahan, not when they were right there and could do something.

Now the Rancourts were returning the favor, helping Manny establish his credentials in their world. And the big dope fell for it. He didn't see that they were ingratiating themselves-he didn't see that he should have stayed in the air force, teaching a new generation of young men how to be pararescuemen.

But Manny hadn't listened to her in months, and, depending on her mood, Val didn't blame him.

She sank back in her chair at her small, round table in what passed for an eating area. The kitchen wasn't much bigger than a closet, and the bedroom was just big enough for a double bed and a bureau. She hadn't slept that close to Manny in years. Fortunately, she was a petite woman herself-black-haired, brown-eyed and, at thirty-eight, still with a good future ahead of her. If she stopped screwing up her life.

The living room was kind of cute-it had a large paned window shaded by a gorgeous oak tree, its leaves a rich burgundy color now that it was November. A one-bedroom apartment on a noisy street in Arlington was the best she and Manny could find-and afford-on short notice. At least it was clean and bug-free. If he made a go of his business and they decided to stay in the Washington area, they'd start looking for a house.

Their son was doing well, and she was off antidepressants.

Remember your priorities, she told herself.

She folded up the paper and called Manny on his cell phone, getting his voice mail. "Hi, it's me. I heard about what happened. Sounds hideous. Call me when you can and let me know you're all right."

There. That was nice. She hadn't yelled anything about being his wife and having a goddamned right to know. For all she knew, he could be in jail.

She doubted he'd call back. He'd given her six months to get her shit together. He'd stick it out with her until then. If she stayed on her current track, he was gone. That was five months ago, and she was doing better. Manny was the same. He was a bossy, stubborn SOB and refused to recognize his own stress reaction to the utterly crappy time they'd had of it lately, but Val couldn't control what he did-she'd finally figured that one out after months in psychotherapy. Twenty years of sleeping with him hadn't quite done it.

But Manny wasn't responsible for the allergies and asthma that had come so close-so very close-to taking their son's life. Neither was she, but that had taken more months of therapy to sort out, because she'd wanted someone to blame. Otherwise-why? What was the point of a thirteen-year-old boy almost dying from eating a damn peanut? Coughing and choking just trying to breathe?

She didn't want her son having to struggle for the rest of his life with a chronic illness. She wanted her son to have a chance to be a PJ like his dad if that was what he chose.

She wanted the Manny Carrera she'd married back- smart, funny, sexy, self-aware.

And she wanted herself back, the tough Val, the Val who didn't take shit from anyone.

But Manny was struggling, although he wouldn't admit it, and she was struggling, and Eric would never be a PJ, his choices limited by asthma and allergies so severe he had to wear a Medic Alert bracelet and carry an inhale rand a dose of epinephrine wherever he went. He was on daily doses of four different medications. Even with the promise of new treatments and desensitization shots, he'd never be accepted into PJ indoc-it just wasn't going to happen.

None of it was anyone's fault. It just was.

And Eric was doing fine, with a long, good life ahead of him. He would say to her-"Mom, Dad could never be a ballet dancer or a calculus teacher. That's okay, right? Then it's okay that I can't be a PJ."

Val debated calling him at his prep school in Cold Ridge, but decided Manny should be the one to talk to their son about whatever had gone on in Boston. Whatever was still going on. It wasn't easy having Eric away at school, but it was what he wanted-and, after weeks fighting it, she could see it was what he needed at least right now. Between a scholarship and scraping together what they had, she and Manny were managing the tuition. Just managing.

She'd been such a trooper through those early days of diagnosis and treatment. Supermom. She'd done it all. Manny's work was demanding, his paycheck not optional. When Eric went into anaphylactic shock the first time, last spring, Manny's paramedic skills had saved his life. But he wasn't around for all the late-night asthma attacks, the trips to the emergency room, the ups and downs as Eric's illness got sorted out and brought under control. Val quit her job as a bookstore manager and devoted herself one-hundred percent to restoring her son's health.

But even when Eric was on his feet, she didn't back off and return to her job at the bookstore near the base where Manny was stationed. She became a total nutcase, a control freak, suffocating Eric-suffocating herself. And Manny. He was caught in the cross fire.

Not that he'd done anything to help the situation. He was oblivious, content to let her handle all the details, the doctors, Eric's volatile emotions-do it all, until it started affecting him.

Last fall in Cold Ridge hadn't helped matters. Manny had put everything on the line to sneak around in the woods after Carine Winter was shot at, then traipsed after a couple of rich people in trouble-Val knew he was just doing what he did, but what about her? Why the hell couldn't he be there for her?