I've had a few of those myself, Matt thought.

It wasn't that long ago that I held Susan Reynolds in my arms as her very life poured out from that bullet hole in her head.

And I loved her like I love Amanda.

Right down to the roadside cottage with the picket fence.

I endlessly questioned if I could've done anything different to save her from that madman of a killer.

And, bottom line, the answer was I couldn't.

Still, finally realizing that didn't ease the pain of loss.

He took a sip of Scotch as he glanced at Amanda.

Am I about to lose Amanda…?

Amanda was saying: "I also understand that sometimes things play out the way they do no matter what anyone does. In fact, in some cases we probably prolong the inevitable by taking the heroic measures. Which was why someone in a wise moment came up with DNRs."

"Do Not Resuscitate orders," Matt said.

She nodded.

He sipped his drink again and tried to understand where she was going with this.

Maybe it's her body clock ticking. The abduction was a real wake-up call for her sense of mortality.

And maybe that's some manifestation of survivor's guilt-in part because she lived while that young teen Honduran girl, after being forced into prostitution, died a brutal death.

Then she said: "Two months ago, Matt, I went to Hawaii for an M and M."

I know she can't mean candy.

"It's a conference doctors attend," she went on, as if reading his mind, "Morbidity and Mortality."

This is about mortality!

He said, "I heard those conferences are really just an excuse to write off trips to fancy places, like Hawaii, so you can play and take a business deduction."

"The idea of M and Ms is peer review. We look at how others cared for patients and how it could have been done better. Particularly cases in which a mistake was made and the patient died. Being head of the burn unit, I tend to be the one doing the reviewing. It's not exactly a pleasant task. No one likes to be told they screwed up, but we do want to do right by our patients-First do no harm-and the peer review, while sometimes painful, does help. You learn to modify behavior. And avoid repeating mistakes."

She looked at him a long moment.

"Matt, I don't like repeating mistakes. I can't."

"Of course not. I understand. There're lives at stake."

"Yes, there are. Ours."

What?

She said: "We're at a critical time in our lives. I feel we've both been given second chances, and I want us to get this next one right."

"Oh."

"I had a long talk with my father."

Matt had met Charley Law only once, but had heard stories about him from Jason Washington, who'd known Law during his twenty years with the department in Northeast Detectives. Washington had said that her old man always had been full of commonsense gems, that he'd been a good cop because he could quickly strip away the bullshit and cut right to the chase.

Law had been off duty when he took a bullet to the hip. He'd walked in on a robbery of a gas station on Frankford Avenue. Returning fire, he'd shot the critter dead then and there-and wound up being offered disability and retirement. And he'd taken it, saying he was glad to get the hell out, if only to get past all the lame jokes about his name-"Well, well, here comes The Law."

When Matt had first tried dating Amanda-right before the abduction-she had made it damn perfectly clear what a toll her father's job had taken on their family. She told him about the daily pain of watching him go to work, and fearing that that would be the last time they'd see him alive.

Amanda went on: "When I turned thirteen, Dad sat me down at the kitchen table. He said, 'This is your birds-and-bees speech. Pay attention. We're on this planet basically to do two things: eat and reproduce. And we eat in order to have the energy to reproduce. Everything else-your clothes, TV, music, vacations, whatever-it's all filler for between the reproduction times. That's what we're hardwired to do. Understanding that, you will know that boys want nothing more than to get in your pants and will tell you whatever you want to hear to accomplish that. So, understand that you-and only you-can control who gets in your pants.'"

Payne avoided eye contact as he took a long, slow sip of his drink.

Then he said, "I'm afraid to ask, but am I supposed to respond to that?"

She smiled. "No, I'm just trying to paint a picture."

He chuckled nervously. "That's one helluva picture."

"The picture I'm painting is that my dad and I have a close connection. And recently, Dad and I were talking about relationships. He told me that 'nobody has the first damn answer why two people ever get together,' only that there was the hardwiring. But he could offer me the benefit of looking back, at his marriage and those of others. His experience.

"He said, 'Amanda, so many women go into a relationship thinking they're going to change the man, make him better. Civilize him. It just doesn't work.'"

Matt looked in her eyes, then said, "I need civilizing?"

Amanda shook her head. "No, it's not that at all. It's more that both people in the relationship need to be in concert from the start. Not, as my dad said, have one trying to 'fix' the other along the way."

Matt took a sip of his Scotch and nodded. "I fully agree with that."

Amanda was silent a long moment.

Oh, shit! Did I just paint myself into a corner?

"Then why won't you quit playing cop, Matt? And trying to get yourself killed?"

I wonder if she's been talking about this with Amy, who's been banging that drum forever?

The smooth voice of Diana Krall was now singing "The Look of Love," and Matt thought, She's got the player on shuffle. Has she been playing those CDs all night?

Amanda took a sip of her wine, then said, "Okay, now the fun part."

"What?"

"Bear with me," she said. "Not too long before she died at seventy-three, looking gorgeous even at the end, Anne Bancroft-"

She paused and looked at him questioningly.

Matt said, "Sure. Wife of one of the funniest guys ever, Mel Brooks."

"Not just a wife. She was a successful actress on her own, you know."

"Really? Like what?"

"She's one of the few with a Tony, an Emmy, and an Oscar to her name. And you still only know her as Mel Brooks's wife?"

Payne shook his head. "Sorry."

"She was Mrs. Robinson."

"Mrs. Robinson?"

"The Graduate?"

"Never heard of it."

Frustrated, she sighed. "Matt! You can't be that dense."

He grinned. Then he started whistling the Simon amp; Garfunkel hit tune from the soundtrack, appropriately titled "Mrs. Robinson."

Amanda punched him in the shoulder. He thought it was somewhat playfully done, but the sad look on her face didn't seem to support that.

"Oh, you are just impossible!" she said, her tone exasperated, then upended her wine stem, emptying it.

He made an attempt at a smile, but she was having none of it. Then he leaned forward, touched her chin with the thumb and index finger of his right hand to lift her head, and kissed her on the cheek.

"Sorry. I was just playing. What were you going to say?"

"Well, Matt, I'm not playing. Goddammit, I'm serious."

She inhaled deeply, exhaled, then said: "Not too long before Anne Bancroft died-and she didn't say it because everyone knew she had cancer; she was very private, and no one knew she was dying but Mel Brooks and her doctors-she was asked in an interview what the secret was to her successful-and quite clearly loving-forty-year marriage."

Oh, shit. I think I see where this is going.

He said: "Okay…"

"And what do you think she said, Matt?"

Watch out, Matty, ol' boy.

This is a minefield.

Step carefully or… BOOM!

He thought for a long moment, then said, "I don't know. What with being married to a brilliant writer, actor, director, probably something about patience. And about respect. And real love, of course."