Abe was shaking his head. "It's no kind of fit. How can they be the same? We'd have heard of an escape. And he can't be on parole—such an uproar that would have caused from the pro-abortion crowd already. So how can he be dating this Forest Hills maidelV

"I don't know. But I'll bet it has something to do with Levy not wanting to report his abduction." He pounded the table. "If I had a connection in the PD I could run Bethlehem's fingerprints and see if they match Bolton's."

"And you'd get these fingerprints where?"

"Easy. Christy says he eats at a certain diner a lot. I just snag a glass or coffee cup from his table after he leaves." He shook his head. "I bet Jake Fixx would have no problem IDing him."

"Being an ex—Navy SEAL who used to work for the CTA, none at all. But a shlub like you…"

"… has got to do it the hard way. Which means a more pointed conversation with a certain Doctor Levy."

8

Dawn sprawled naked on the bed beneath Jerry, panting in the afterglow of her fifth and final orgasm, the biggest and maddest of this bout of lovemaking.

God, sex was great. How had she gone without it for so long? Not that she'd been like a total virgin when she'd met Jerry, but pretty damn close. One drunken, clumsy, fumbling, all-too-brief encounter in the back of a minivan last year hardly made her experienced. Pretty much she'd done it just to do it. Hadn't even liked the guy all that much. Terry had been okay—at least less of a jerk than most of the guys in her school—but so not what she was looking for in a steady. She realized now she'd been totally clueless about what she was looking for until she'd met Jerry.

She watched him as he levered himself up and rolled away. She totally loved every part of his long lean body, especially his beard when it rubbed against her cheek, and her nipples, and the insides of her thighs. But she loved most of all the part that was slipping out of her now.

She almost laughed. God, I've become such a slut. I should get an I luv COCK bumper sticker.

As he wiped himself off she felt a flash of concern. They never used protection. She knew she was clean, but what about Jerry? He'd had a lot more years to pick up an STD or two. He swore he was clean, and she believed he believed that, but he might be mistaken. So far, so good. And as always, the flash of concern was just that: a flash.

And as for pregnancy, no worry. He'd told her he'd been "fixed"—a vasec-tomy ten years ago when he decided he didn't like this world enough to bring a child into it.

She totally agreed with that. Have a child and watch him or her grow up into dorks like she'd gone to school with? No way.

And somehow that made her think of Mom, and like how she'd always been working to make her a better person. Yeah, Mom. Charging her every time she used "like" or "totally." How eorny was that?

Like totally—totally-totally-totally.

There. That would have cost $2.50.

Mom loved her—Dawn had no doubt about that. But maybe she loved her too much. So totally too much that she'd started making up stories about Jerry.

Looking at Jerry she wondered for the millionth time what he saw in her. She knew she wasn't pretty—plain and thick-waisted, to tell the total truth. Didn't have like a great ass or the bodacious tatas that tended to bring the opposite sex sniffing around. She'd wound up preferring books to boys because boys had so totally not gotten her, and she'd never really gotten them.

She now knew why: Because they were boys. Jerry was a man.

Vive la difference!

She looked at him and wanted him again. She felt bad taking him away from their work designing the ultimate unisex video game, but every time they sat down and put their heads together to do some design, they started putting their lips together and pretty soon they'd have everything together.

LOL!

She loved this townhouse. A bangin' cool place. All this mad chrome furniture and a home theater with a huge screen and a surround sound system to die for. She totally wanted to move in here but didn't want to push things—Jerry might not be ready for that yet. But he would be. And soon. She could tell.

The only thing she didn't like was the painting Jerry had stuck here on the bedroom wall. She didn't know why the turbulent abstract swirls of black and deep purple bothered her, but she always got the totally crazy feeling it was watching her.

Looking at it now made her pull the sheet over her. Weird. And even weirder, she'd touched it once and it felt wet. Ugh.

But Jerry loved it. Said it "spoke" to him. He'd found it in a secondhand store in Monroe. He was always on the lookout for others by the same artist—Melanie Ehler or something like that—but never found any. Dawn was glad for that.

As she was deciding whether or not to reach up and grab his joy stick, the phone rang. Jerry stepped over to it, stared down at the caller ID readout, and frowned.

"Hey, it's your momma."

Dawn felt all the heat rush out of her.

"Don't answer."

He looked at her. "Maybe I should. Maybe it's important."

"Nothing she has to say can be important. Let her leave a message."

"I'm gonna see what's on her mind." He picked up the receiver and said, "Hello, Mrs. P. What can I do for you?"

Always such a gentleman. Even to her. Dawn couldn't believe she'd cooked up those things about Jerry. If she were him she'd so tell her to go to hell.

What had come over Mom anyway? Maybe it was more than love. Maybe it was crazy-mad possessiveness. Yeah, Jerry was twice her age, sure, but so what? It was only eighteen years. So okay, get a little upset, but don't go around accusing him of murder!

And if you are going to make some total bullshit charge, at least make sure whoever he was supposed to have killed is dead.

That wasn't like Mom either. She was usually pretty together and well thought out. If she so wanted to bust them up, you'd think she could come up with something better than that.

Maybe she'd been lied to. Maybe she'd believed because she wanted to believe anything bad about Jerry.

Dawn was so proud of how Jerry had handled it. Yeah, he'd looked like he was going to go totally nuclear at first, but then he'd calmed himself down and wanted to go over and confront his accuser.

She watched Jerry's frown deepen as he listened. What was she saying? Then he glanced at her.

"Without Dawn? I don't know about that."

Without Dawn? She sat up. What was she saying to him?

Finally he said, "Okay. Give me about an hour." Then he hung up.

"What's going on? What did she say?"

He stared at her. "She wants to talk to me. Alone."

"Why alone?"

"She didn't say. Just said we have to talk—without you around. Maybe she thinks if we have a heart to heart she can somehow convince me I'm wrong for you."

Dawn's stomach spasmed at the possibility. She jumped to her feet.

"And you're going?"

"Look at it this way, darlin: It's a chance for me to turn the tables on her and convince her how important you are to me. If I can convince her that I'll never harm you—in fact, I'll protect you with my life—maybe she'll stop seein me as a threat and get off our backs."

Dawn threw her arms around him.

"Don't go. She's gone totally crazy. She's got a gun, you know. For all we know she's going to shoot you."

He stiffened. "Whoa! Didn"t know about that. But I wouldn't worry about it. She seemed very calm."

Dawn pleaded with him as he showered and got dressed, but couldn't change his mind.

As he smiled and waved on his way out the door, Dawn prayed he'd return in one piece.