I stood looking up into the sky when I'd reached my car, lost in the gray emptiness of an overcast November day. Wet leaves had piled up in the lower parts of the parking lot. It was going to rain again that evening, the weatherman had predicted. I heard footsteps behind me. The apathy washed back over me, a wave that pulled me under. I was so tired I could scarcely move. I wished the coming scene to be over and done with, wished I could go somewhere else while it was accomplished.

"Why'd you run out like that?"

"You'd better go back to your area, or you'll blow your cover."

"I'm working," he said harshly.

"Night and day. At the store and elsewhere, Jack."

There was a moment of silence.

"Look at me, dammit."

It would have seemed too affected not to, so I stopped looking at the bleak sky and looked instead at Jack Leeds's bleak face.

"I get a hard-on every time I see you," he said.

"Try sending me roses. It's a little more subtle."

He gazed off at a corner of the asphalt. He'd come out without a jacket. I was meanly glad to see him shiver.

"OK. I'll start over," he said through gritted teeth. "You know I'm working, and you know what I am."

He waited for me to nod. To get it over with, I did.

"I am not seeing anyone right now. I've been divorced twice, but you may remember that from the papers."

I leaned against my car, feeling far away, glad to be there.

With the speed of a snake, he ran his hand under my jacket and T-shirt, placing it flat on my ribs. I gasped and flinched, but his hand stayed there, warm and firm.

"Move your hand," I said, my voice ragged.

"Got your attention. Listen to me. This job in Shakespeare will come to an end. I want to see you then."

I shivered, standing stock-still, rigid, taken by surprise. His fingers moved against my skin, touching the scars gently. A silver pickup pulled into the space two vehicles away and the driver gave us a curious look. I chopped down on Jack Leeds's wrist, knocking his hand from its intimate lodgment.

"I have to go to work, Jared," I said numbly, and got in my car and backed up, avoiding looking at him again.

Carrie was coming to supper tonight and I thought about what I'd fix, not one of my usual frozen-ahead dishes that I prepared on Sundays to carry me through the week. Maybe fettucini with ham ... or chili would be good, on such a chilly gray day, but I didn't have enough time to let it simmer.

Keeping my thoughts to a simple minimum, I managed my afternoon well. It was a relief to go home, to allow myself ten minutes in my favorite chair reading a news magazine. Then I set to work, tossing a salad, preparing the fettucini, heating some garlic bread, chopping the ham. When Carrie knocked on the front door, I was ready.

"Those morons at the hospital!" she said, sliding out of her coat, tossing her gloves on the table.

"Hello to you, too."

"You'd think they could see the handwriting on the wall. Everyone else can." The tiny Shakespeare Hospital was in perpetual crisis trying to maintain its accreditation, with no adequate budget to supply its lacks, which were legion.

I let Carrie bear the brunt of the conversation, which she seemed quite willing to do. There were few people Carrie could talk to, as a woman and a doctor and an outlander from northern Arkansas. I knew from previous talks with Carrie that she had gotten a loan to attend medical school. The terms of the loan stipulated that she had to go to somewhere other doctors didn't want to go and stay there for four years; and other doctors didn't want to go to Shakespeare. Carrie was one of four local GPs, who all made a decent living, but for more specialized medical care Shakespeareans had to travel to Montrose, or in dire need, Little Rock.

"Where'd you get the ring?" Carrie asked suddenly.

I'd been feeling a warm hand on my skin. It took me a second to reorient.

"The older Mrs. Winthrop says Marie Hofstettler left me this," I told Carrie.

"It's a pretty ring," she said. "Can I see it?"

I slid the ring off and handed it to Carrie. I thought of my strange visit to the Winthrop house the night before, the pallor of Howell Winthrop's face as he saw the ring box in my hand.

Some things that were supposed to be free actually came mighty expensive. I wondered if this little ring was one of them.

Then I wondered why that thought had crossed my mind.

I took the ring back from Carrie and slid it on my right hand, then took it back off and dropped it in my pocket. Carrie raised her thick dark brows, but didn't say anything.

We washed the dishes, talking in a companionable way of whatever crossed our minds: the price of milk, the vagaries of dealing with the public, the onset of hunting season (which would have a certain impact on Carrie's job and mine, since hunting engendered both injuries and dirt galore), and the recuperation of Claude, which continued at too slow a pace to suit him, and, I suspected, Carrie. She told me she'd gotten the green light to move Claude from an upstairs to a downstairs apartment, but that he wanted to be on the scene to direct the move, so a date hadn't been set yet.

When Carrie left, it was a little later than usual, and I was worn out. I took a quick shower, put on my favorite blue nightgown, laid out my clothes for the next morning. I went through my nightly routine of checking the locks at the windows and doors. I felt more relaxed, more content. Tomorrow might be a regular day.

Chapter Six

My heart was hammering. The bad time was back again. I sat up in bed, gasping, my nightgown damp against my breasts. I'd been sweating in my sleep. Horrible dreams, old dreams, the worst: the chains, the shack, the rhythmic thud of the iron headboard against the wall.

Something had wakened me, something besides the dream; or maybe something had sparked the dream. I scrambled out of bed and pulled on the white chenille robe I keep draped across the footboard. As I tied the sash tightly around my waist, I glanced at my digital clock. One-thirty. I heard a sound: a quick, light rapping at my back door.

I crept out of my bedroom. It's next to that door. I put my ear against the wood. A voice on the other side of the door was saying something over and over, and as my hand reached for the switch, I realized the voice was saying, "Don't turn on the light! For God's sake, don't turn on the light!"

"Who is it?" I asked, my ear pressed to the meeting of door and frame so I could hear better.

"Jack, it's Jack. Let me in, they're after me!"

I heard the desperation in his voice. I pushed the dead bolt back and opened the door. A dark form hurtled past me and crashed on the hall floor as I slammed the door shut and re-locked it.

I knelt beside him. The faint radiance provided by the nightlight burning behind the nearly shut bathroom door was almost useless. His breathing was ragged and loud; no point in asking him questions. I moved my fingers up Jack's legs first: wet boots, damp blue jeans—it was raining again. My hands moved higher, running over his butt and crotch; then I felt his chest, his back, under his padded waterproof vest.

The detective rolled to his right side. He groaned when my fingers found the sticky patch on his left shoulder. I flinched, too, but I made my hand return to the wound. There was a hole in the vest. I probed further. There was a big hole in the vest, and the shirt underneath was ripped. It seemed plain enough that Jack Leeds had been shot high in the shoulder.

"I need to look at this in some light," I said. His breathing seemed closer to normal. He was shaking now, from cold and perhaps relief.