Sebastian wasn’t sure if he’d be around. Jane meant a lot to him; he wanted to make their relationship work. But he was afraid their histories would always taint their actions in one way or another, make them overreact when they shouldn’t or withdraw when they should persist. He wasn’t positive they could overcome all that, wasn’t positive Jane would be willing to work through the rough patches.

“You still mad at me?” he asked when they were finally alone in the living room.

She was just logging on to her computer. He’d been surfing the Internet on his, pulling up maps of Sacramento and motels where he thought Malcolm might go because they were cheap.

“No,” she said. “It just…it surprised me, I guess. I’m not used to having anyone fight my battles.”

“I think it surprised everyone.”

“No kidding.” Shaking her head, she began to laugh. “Wendy looked like she’d swallowed a golf ball.”

“Maurice and Betty were struck speechless,” he added with chagrin.

Jane’s laughter subsided, but her smile lingered. “Will you always be so take-charge?”

He wished he could say no, but he knew himself too well. “Probably.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Watching her carefully, he posed his next question. “Do you think it’ll be a problem?”

She met his eyes. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “But I’ll let you know when you’re stepping on my toes.”

He smiled. Maybe he’d overreacted by assuming they couldn’t make room for each other. “That’s fair.”

She started typing, and he signed on to his e-mail account. Mary had sent him a message telling him how much she wanted to come home. He wrote her a quick reply, asking her to be patient. He’d also received a message from the handwriting specialist. She confirmed that the directions to Cache Creek he’d found in Ione were indeed Malcolm’s handwriting. It was a bit late for that information to help, but when he’d hired her, he hadn’t known things would develop the way they did. Thanks to Latisha’s brave escape, they had all the forensic evidence they’d need. The problem wasn’t proving Malcolm was alive or even guilty; the problem was finding him so they could use the evidence they had to put him away.

Without leads, Sebastian had no idea how they’d do that. And yet…he wasn’t as distraught as he would’ve been a week ago. Somehow, being with Jane took the edge off the emotions that had cut him so badly.

After returning the rest of his messages-a note from his mother and another one from his boss in New York-he sat with his computer open as if he was still working, but watched Jane instead. A frown creased her forehead, but she was so darn pretty he thought he could stare at her all day.

Glancing up, she caught him. “What is it?” she asked.

He wanted to tell her he’d just been thinking about how differently he’d begun to view everything since he’d met her, but those emotions were too new to put into words. “You were frowning. Something wrong?”

“Not really. I’ve just been checking an e-mail account connected to the Web site at work. Skye usually does it, but she asked me to see to it while she was gone. There’s a message in here that concerns me, that’s all.”

“What kind of message?”

“It’s from an abused woman. Sounds like she might be in serious trouble.”

He closed his laptop. “She’s asking for help?”

“Yeah. She wants to meet with someone tomorrow afternoon.”

“Will you take the appointment?”

“Might as well,” she said as he walked over to her. “It’ll be right after the staff meeting. Skye, Ava and Sheridan will be there, but Sheridan’ll have the baby and Skye and Ava have been gone so long they need a chance to see their families. I can do it. It shouldn’t take long.”

“I can stay here with Kate,” he said.

Her frown dissolved into a grateful smile. “Thanks. Let me respond to her e-mail-then I’ll be done, too.”

He massaged her shoulders while she typed. “How long does it take Kate to fall asleep?” he asked as she sent it.

She twisted around to look up at him. “I don’t know. Why?”

Jerking his head toward the hall, he grinned. “How’d you like to make up in the shower?”

She didn’t answer with words. She stood and turned to face him, and her hands tugged his shirt from his pants as they kissed.

There weren’t a lot of girls out tonight. It was too cold. And the ones Malcolm saw looked nothing like Latisha. Mostly, they were fat white girls with a few Asians and Mexicans thrown in. He couldn’t even pretend they were like Latisha. Not once they opened their mouths, anyway. The profanity made them seem so…hardened. Odd that he hadn’t ever noticed that before. Or cared.

Being reduced to searching for a look-alike made him feel like hurting somebody. But even with the sparse pickings, he wasn’t worried that he’d be able to get a girl into the van. All it took was money.

He pulled to a stop at the corner of Stockton and 65th Street and lowered his window. When he made eye contact with a Mexican hooker, she smiled and sauntered closer. “Hey, you lookin’ for a date?” she said.

It couldn’t be more than fifty degrees outside but her skirt came up as high as her ass and her blouse plunged down to her belly button. She wasn’t wearing a bra, no doubt to show off the nipple piercings that could easily be seen through her thin shirt. She wasn’t black, but her skin was almost the same golden color as Latisha’s.

Would she do? He wasn’t particularly excited about her, but he couldn’t afford to be picky on a night like this…

“How much?” he asked.

“Depends on what you want.”

“It’s too cold to be standing on a street corner,” he said.

She straightened, studied her long red fingernails and glanced at the vehicle behind him as if she had a dozen takers lined up. “You ain’t gonna get this for free, but if you want oral sex the likes of which you ain’t never seen, you’ve come to the right place.”

He considered his options. She’d just offered him a blow job. Did that mean she wouldn’t do it in the traditional way? Some of these girls tried to avoid it, or insisted on a condom, so they wouldn’t pick up a disease. If that was the case with this one, he was more interested rather than less-because chances were good she’d kept herself clean. “Will you let me tie you up?”

“For the right price.”

“How much?”

“A hundred bucks.”

She was dreaming. She wasn’t going to get a hundred bucks out of anyone. This was Sacramento, not New York. But he didn’t bother to argue. He didn’t plan on paying, anyway.

Popping the locks, he reached across to open the door. “Climb in.”

“Circle around,” she said. “I gotta get my purse from inside.”

“What do you need your purse for?”

She rolled her eyes. “I always provide the condom. That’s the one rule I won’t break, so take it or leave it, eh?”

He studied her. She wasn’t like Latisha, wasn’t half as sweet. He almost drove off and left her. He wasn’t going to let a woman-least of all a gutter-grade whore-act as if she had even a hint of control. But none of the other girls he’d passed had dark skin. Since Latisha, he needed dark skin to get excited.

When he came around the corner again, she was waiting for him as promised, posing to make the most of her limited assets.

“You gonna be sorry,” he mimicked when he drove up, but he said nothing loudly enough for her to hear. He just opened the door and she got in.

“You mind if I call you Latisha?” he asked.

She chomped her gum. “Say what?”

“Your name during our time together will be Latisha.”

“Whatever gets you hard, baby. For the right price you can call me Mother Mary. So where we goin’?”

“You know of a hotel close by?”

Taking out her gum, she stuck it on a Styrofoam cup that’d been in his van for weeks. “You got a van. Can’t we park behind a building for a few minutes?”