"Both of us went through the building from top to bottom again. We found nothing, so we left. I was driving," he said. "I wasn’t sure where I was headed. I was just trying to clear my mind the way Morganstern taught us, and I remember I had just driven past a hospital when I asked Nick what the hell we were going to do, being squeezed out by Wesson the way we were."

Noah paused to smile and then added, "Nick didn’t say anything. He popped a piece of gum in his mouth, and I figured he was doing the same thing I was trying to do. You know, trying to clear his mind. And all of a sudden, he turned to me and said, ‘So, where’s the cat?’

"We started doing what Morganstern would probably call a little free-associating then. Kids love animals, most do anyway, and a customer had reported she’d seen the little girl chasing after the cat. We both figured out what might have happened then. I was driving like a bat out of hell, trying to get back to the department store as fast as I could, but then I saw the hospital emergency entrance, and I pulled in. Nick and I went running into the emergency room, flashed our badges, and grabbed a doctor who was just going on break. Nick told him he was going with us and to bring his stethoscope with him."

"The little girl was still in the store, wasn’t she?"

"Sure she was," he said. "She went in one of those big old vents after the cat," he explained. "Crawling around on the floor by the walls, no one would have noticed her, as busy and crowded as the store was. The vent didn’t hold her, and she went down two and a half floors and got trapped on a ledge above the basement. The fall should have killed her," he added. "She had hit her head and was unconscious when we finally got to her. The cat stayed with her. We could hear the faint meowing through the stethoscope."

"But she was all right."

He smiled again. "Yeah, she was okay."

"You and Nick must have been jubilant."

"Yeah, we were, but we were also frustrated with ourselves at the same time. Both of us had missed the obvious. We let the guy in the raincoat get in our way," he said. "We should have noticed the vent the girl crawled into was a little bit off-kilter from the others, but we missed it. And we shouldn’t have taken so long to notice the cat was missing."

"You found her within hours of your arrival," she pointed out.

"But if we had been more observant, we could have cut the time in half. We were damn lucky she was still alive. She could have been bleeding down there, and if that had been the case, we would have been too late."

Laurant knew that nothing she could say would change his opinion of his performance.

"Normally, Wesson would have been just as happy and relieved as everyone else," he said.

"He wasn’t?" she asked, surprised.

"He isn’t a monster, or at least he wasn’t back then," he qualified. "But jealousy was eating him up. Sure he was happy the little girl was all right…"

"But?"

"Nick deliberately left him out. He should have told Wesson what he suspected and let him run with the ball." Noah paused for a moment. "Yeah, that’s what he should have done, but I’m glad he didn’t. Tit for tat, as childish as that was. And in his defense, and mine because I backed him, we were young and stupid back then, and neither one of us gave a damn about career politics. We still don’t. Nick had to be sure the kid was there, and so did I. Anyway, Wesson found out about the girl after the fact, from Morganstern. Nick and I were already on our way to the airport. Nick had wanted to prove a point, but he had humiliated Wesson, and ever since then, the mere mention of his name or mine gets the same kind of reaction as pouring salt on an open wound. Neither one of us have had to work with him since, until this case."

Laurant propped her elbow on the table, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. She stared at Noah, but didn’t really see him. She was thinking about the story he had just told her.

Until this moment, there had been a tiny little hope in the back of her mind that Nick would quit his job. And, oh God, how selfish and wrong she had been to want such a thing.

"Life doesn’t have any guarantees, does it?" she said.

"No, you’ve got to grab what you can while you can. Nick’s good at what he does, but he’s burning out. I can see it in his eyes. The stress is going to kill him if he doesn’t get some balance in his life. He needs someone like you to come home to at night."

"He doesn’t want that."

"He may not want it, but he needs it."

"What about you?"

"We aren’t talking about me," he said. "You and Nick are something else, you know that? Being on the outside, observing, it’s really easy to see what’s going on. Want me to enlighten you? I’ll warn you in advance. You won’t like what I have to say."

"Go ahead," she said. "Enlighten me. I can take it."

"Okay," he agreed. "Here’s the way I see it. You and Nick are both trying to alter reality. You’re both running away from life. Don’t argue with me until I’m finished," he told her when he saw she was about to interrupt. "Nick’s trying to close himself up, to distance himself from everyone, even his family, and that’s a big mistake in his line of work. He needs to feel, because that’s the only way he’s going to stay sharp and focused. I can see he’s getting to the point where he doesn’t want to take a chance on feeling anything at all because that would make him too damned vulnerable. If he keeps going this way, he’s going to become hard and cynical. And he sure as hell won’t be any good at his job. Now as for you…"

"Yes?" She straightened in the chair, tense now as she waited to hear his verdict about her.

"You’re doing the same thing, just in a different way. You’re hiding out here in this little town. I know you don’t see it that way, but that’s what you’re doing. You’re more afraid of taking a chance than Nick is. If you don’t put yourself out there, you can’t get hurt. That’s how you view life, isn’t it? And if you keep going this way, you’re going to turn into a bitter, old, dried-up prune, and a coward to boot."

She knew Noah wasn’t deliberately trying to be cruel, but what he had just said devastated her. Was that how he saw her? Laurant shrank back and gripped her hands together. A coward? How could he think she would ever become a coward?

"I don’t believe you understand-"

"I’m not finished. There’s more. Want to hear it?"

She braced herself. "Yes, go ahead."

"I saw one of your paintings."

Her gaze flew to his. "Where?" she asked, astonished. Why did she feel the sudden pang of fear?

"It’s hanging in Tom’s bedroom," he told her. "And it’s one of the most powerful paintings I’ve ever seen. You should be damned proud of it. I’m not the only person who thought it was incredible. The abbot wanted to hang it in the church. Tom told me he stole the painting from you. He also told me that you keep all your paintings wrapped up tight and hidden away in your storage closet so no one can see them. That’s one sure way to beat rejection, isn’t it? It’s safe. Like the kind of life you’re building here. Well, guess what, babe. There’s no such thing as a safe life. Bad things happen, like your brother getting cancer, and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. You’re sure trying though, aren’t you? Maybe thirty years from now you’ll have convinced yourself that you’re content with your perfect, safe life, but I assure you, it’s going to be lonely. And by then, the amazing talent you have will probably have dried up."

Laurant shuddered under the weight of the future Noah had just described. He was forcing her to open her eyes and take a hard look at herself.

"You don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Yeah, I do. You just don’t want to hear it." She bowed her head as she mentally argued against his bleak prophecy. Perhaps when she’d first moved to Holy Oaks, she had been running away from life. But it wasn’t like that now. She’d fallen in love with the town and the people, and she had become involved with the community. She hadn’t just sat back and let the world revolve around her.