He’d tried to get interested in a baseball game on TV. When that failed, he moved to the piano, but his playing had been uninspired and for once hadn’t helped him sort through his disturbing thoughts. He’d slept in brief snatches between long periods of wakefulness. Still restless at dawn, he’d kicked off the annoying bedsheet and gotten up, his mind in as much of a tangle as it had been the previous evening.

“Detective Hatcher?”

With a start, he turned. She was standing no more than three feet away. His heart rate, which during his stretches had returned to a normal, post-exercise rhythm, spiked at the sight of her.

He looked past her, almost expecting someone to be there playing a practical joke on him. He couldn’t have been more surprised had there been a rowdy group with balloons and noisemakers having fun at his expense.

But the sidewalk was empty. The woman who’d been watering her ferns was no longer on her porch. There was no sight of the dog and his owner. Nothing, not a single leaf, moved in the thick air. Only his rushing breath disturbed it.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Didn’t you read my note?” she said.

“Yeah, I read it.”

“Well then.”

“It’s a bad idea for us to meet alone. In fact, this meeting just concluded.”

He moved toward the steps of his town house, but she sidestepped to block his path. “Please don’t walk away. I’m desperate to talk to you.”

“About the fatal shooting at your house?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’m interested to hear what you have to say. I have an office. Give me half an hour. Detective Bowen and I will meet you there.”

“No. I need to speak to you privately. Just you.”

He steeled himself against her soft-spoken urgency. “You can talk to me at the police station.”

“No, I can’t. This is too sensitive to talk about there.”

Sensitive. A bothersome word for sure. He said, “The only thing you and I have to talk about is a dead and dissected Gary Ray Trotter.”

A few strands of pale hair had shaken loose from a messy topknot. The hairdo looked like an afterthought, something she had fashioned as she rushed out the door. She was dressed in a snug cotton T-shirt and a full skirt that hung from a wide band around her hips, the hem skimming her knees. Leather flip-flops on her feet. It was a typical summertime outfit, nothing special about it, except that she was the woman inside, giving shape to the ordinary clothing.

She nodded toward the steps leading up to his front door. “Can we go inside?”

“Not a chance.”

“I can’t be seen with you,” she exclaimed.

“Damn right you can’t. You should have thought of that before you came. How’d you get here anyway?”

“I parked my car on Jones.”

One street over. That’s how she’d managed to come up behind him unheard and unseen until she’d wanted to be. “How’d you know where I live?”

“Telephone directory. I thought the A. D. Hatcher listed might be you. What’s the A for?” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I took a huge risk by coming here.”

“You must enjoy taking risks. Like passing me the note practically under your husband’s nose.”

“Yes, I risked Cato seeing it, and I risked you giving me away. But you didn’t. Did you show my note to Detective Bowen?”

He felt his face grow warm and refused to answer.

“I didn’t think you would,” she said softly.

Embarrassed and angry, he said, “What did you do, sneak out on the judge this morning? Leave him sleeping in your bed?”

“He had an early tee time.” She came a step closer. “You’ve got to help me. Please.”

She didn’t touch him, but she might as well have for the heat that gathered in his crotch. “Groin tug,” he remembered DeeDee saying. Pretty accurate description. He wished he was dressed in something more substantial than nylon running shorts.

“I will help you,” he said evenly. “It’s my duty as a law officer to help you, as well as to resolve the case involving you. But not here and not now. Give me time to clean up. I’ll call Detective Bowen. We’ll set a time to meet. Doesn’t have to be at the police station. You name the place, we’ll be there.”

Before he was finished, she had lowered her head and was shaking it remorsefully. “You don’t understand.” She spoke barely loud enough for him to hear. “I can’t talk about this to anyone else.”

“Why me?”

She raised her head then and looked up at him meaningfully. Their gazes locked and held. Understanding passed between them. The air shimmered with more than thermal heat.

For Duncan, everything receded except her face. Those eyes, as bottomless as the swimming hole he used to dive into headfirst, although he’d been warned that doing so was reckless. That mouth. Shaped as though giving pleasure was its specialty.

Suddenly the front door of the neighboring town house opened, alarming them. Elise slipped into the recessed doorway beneath his front steps where she couldn’t be seen.

“Good morning, Duncan,” the neighbor lady called as she retrieved her newspaper from the porch. “You’re up mighty early.”

“Getting in my exercise before it gets too hot.”

“My, my, you’re disciplined. But, honey, you be careful of this heat. Don’t overexert yourself, now.”

“I won’t.”

She retreated into her house and closed the front door. He ducked below the steps into the damp, cavelike enclosure, surprisingly cool and dim. It served as the entrance to a basement apartment that he had rented out when he’d first acquired the town house. His last renter had skipped out, owing him three months’ rent. He hadn’t bothered to lease it again. He missed the additional income, but rather liked having all four floors of the town house to himself.

Elise stood in shadow with her back pressed against the door.

“I want you away from here,” he whispered angrily. “Now. And don’t pass me any more notes. What is this, junior high? I don’t know what your game is-”

“Gary Ray Trotter came to our house to kill me.”

Duncan ’s rapid breathing sounded loud in the semi-enclosed area. The top of his head barely cleared the low brick ceiling, where ferns sprouted from cracks in the mortar. There was scarcely room enough for two people in the confined space. He was standing close enough to feel the hem of her skirt against his legs, her breath on his bare chest.

“What?”

“I shot him in self-defense. I had no choice. If I hadn’t, he would have killed me. That’s what he was sent to do. He’d been hired to kill me.” She’d spoken in a rush, causing the words to stumble over one another. When she finished, she paused and drew in a short but deep breath.

Duncan stared at her while he pieced together her hurried words so they would make sense. But even after making sense of them, he couldn’t believe them. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Trotter was a hired assassin?”

“Yes.”

“Hired by who?”

“My husband.”

His phone was ringing as he ushered-more like pushed-Elise through the front door. He went around her and snatched up the phone, looking directly at her as he raised it to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Are you up?” DeeDee asked.

“Yeah.”

“You sound out of breath.”

“Just got in from a run.”

“I’ve had some ideas about what we learned last night.”

He continued to stare at Elise with single-minded concentration. She was watching him with equal intensity.

“ Duncan?”

“I’m still here.” He hesitated, then said, “Look, DeeDee, I’m dripping sweat, about to melt all over the living room floor. Let me shower, then I’ll call you back.”

“Okay, but be quick.”

As he disconnected, he realized that he’d made another ill-advised decision. Already he’d placed himself in a dangerously gray area by not telling DeeDee about the note. Now he’d omitted to tell her who was in his living room, making unreasonable claims about a crime they were investigating. In both instances, he had violated police procedure and his personal code of ethics. Somewhere along the way he knew he would be held accountable.