The boy sat across from Tess, quiet and sullen. He didn't fidget or look out of the window. He rarely did. Instead, he sat in the chair and looked down at his own knees. His hands lay spread on his thighs, the fingers slender, the knuckles a bit enlarged from nervous cracking. The nails were bitten down below the quick. Signs of nerves, yet people often go through life well enough while cracking and snapping and chewing on themselves.

It was rare for him to look at the person he was speaking with, or more accurately in his case, the person speaking to him. Every time she managed to get him to make eye contact, she felt both a small victory and a small pang. There was so little she could see in his eyes, for he'd learned at a young age how to shield and conceal. What she did see-when she was given even that rare, quick chance to look-was not resentment, not fear, only a trace of boredom.

Life had not played fair with Joseph Higgins, Jr., and he wasn't taking any chances on being slipped another shot below the belt. At his age, when adults called the plays, he chose isolation and noncommunication as defense against a lack of choice. Tess knew the symptoms. Lack of outward emotion, lack of motivation, lack of interest. A lack.

Somehow, some way, she had to find the trigger that would push him back to caring first about himself, then the world around him.

He was too old for her to play games with, too young for her to meet on the level of adult to adult. She had tried both, and he'd accepted neither. Joey Higgins had placed himself firmly in an in-between space. Adolescence wasn't simply awkward for him, it was miserable.

He was wearing jeans, good, solid jeans, with the button fly raved about in the slick commercials, and a gray sweatshirt with the Maryland terrapin grinning across his chest. His leather high-top Nike's were trendy and new. Light brown hair was cut into moderate spikes around a too thin face. Outwardly he looked like an average fourteen-year-old boy. All the trappings were there. Inside he was a maze of confusion, self-hate, and bitterness that Tess knew she hadn't even begun to touch.

It was unfortunate that instead of being a confidante, a wailing wall, or even a blank sheet of paper to him, she was only one more authority figure in his life. If just once he'd broken out and shouted or argued with her, she would have felt the sessions were progressing. Through them all, he remained polite and unresponsive.

"How are you feeling about school, Joey?"

He didn't shrug. It was as if even that movement might give away some of the feelings he kept locked so tightly inside. "Okay."

"Okay? I'd guess it's always kind of tough to switch schools." She'd fought against that, done everything in her power to persuade his parents not to make such a dramatic move at this point in his therapy. Bad companions, they had said. They were going to get him away from the people influencing him, those who'd drawn him toward alcohol, a brief flirtation with drugs, and an equally quick but more uneasy courtship with the occult. His parents had only succeeded in alienating him, and hacking away a little more at his self-esteem.

It hadn't been companions, bad or otherwise, who had taken Joey on any of those journeys. It was his own spiraling depression and search for an answer, one he might believe was completely and uniquely his own.

Because they no longer found joints in his dresser drawers or smelled liquor on his breath, his parents were confident he was beginning to recover. They couldn't see, or wouldn't, that he was still spiraling down quickly. He'd simply learned how to internalize it.

"New schools can be an adventure," Tess went on when she received no response. "But it's tough being the new kid."

"It's no big deal," he murmured, and continued to look at his knees.

"I'm glad to hear that," she said, though she knew it was a lie. "I had to switch schools when I was about your age and I was scared to death."

He glanced up then, not believing, but interested. He had dark brown eyes that should have been eloquently expressive. Instead they were guarded and wary. "Nothing to be scared of, it's just a school."

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

"It's just a school."

"How about the other kids? Anyone interesting?"

"They're mostly jerks."

"Oh? How's that?"

"They sort of stand around together. There's nobody I want to know."

No one he did know, Tess corrected. The last thing he'd needed at this point was to feel rejected by the school after losing the classmates he'd been used to. "It takes time to make friends, friends who count. It's harder to be alone, Joey, than it is to try to find them."

"I didn't want to transfer."

"I know." She was with him there. Someone had to be. "And I know it's hard to feel as though you can be yanked around whenever the people who make the rules feel like changing them. It's not all that way, Joey. Your parents chose the school because they wanted the best for you."

"You didn't want them to pull me out." He glanced up again, but so quickly, she hardly caught the color of his eyes. "I heard Mom talking."

"As your doctor I felt you might be more comfortable in your old school. Your mother loves you, Joey. Transferring you wasn't a punishment, but her way of trying to make things better for you."

"She didn't want me to be with my friends." But it wasn't said with bitterness, simply flat acceptance. No choice.

"How do you feel about that?"

"She was afraid if I was around them, I'd start drinking again. I'm not drinking." It was said not resentfully, again not bitterly, but wearily.

"I know," Tess said, and laid a hand on his arm. "You can be proud of yourself for pulling out, for making the right choice. I know how hard you have to work every day not to."

"Mom's always blaming things that happen on somebody else."

"What things?"

"Just things."

"Like the divorce?" As usual, a mention of it brought no response at all. Tess backtracked. "How do you feel about not riding the bus anymore?"

"Buses stink."

"Your mother's taking you to school now."

"Yeah."

"Have you talked to your father?"

"He's busy." He looked at Tess with a touch of resentment mixed with a plea. "He's got a new job with this computer place, but I'm going to be spending the weekend with him probably next month. For Thanksgiving."

"How do you feel about that?"

"It's going to be good." The little boy was there briefly, shining with hope. "We're going to go to the Redskins game. He's going to get tickets on the fifty-yard line. It's going to be like it used to be."

"Like it used to be, Joey?"

He looked down at his knees again, but his brows had drawn together in anger.

"It's important to understand that things won't be like they used to. Different doesn't have to be bad. Sometimes change, even when it's hard, can be the best for everyone. I know you love your father. You don't have to stop because you're not living with him."

"He doesn't have a house anymore. Just a room. He said if he didn't have to pay child support, he could have a house."

She could have damned Joseph Higgins, Sr., to hell, but kept her voice firm and soft. "You understand that your father has a problem, Joey. You are not the problem. Alcohol is."

"We have a house," he muttered.

"If you didn't, do you think your father would be happier?"

No response. He was staring at his shoes now.

"I'm glad you're going to spend some time with your father. I know you've missed him."

"He's been busy."

"Yes." Too busy to see his son, too busy to return the calls of the psychiatrist who was trying to heal the hurts. "Sometimes adults can get pretty wrapped up in their lives. You must know how difficult things are for your father now, in a new job, because you're in a new school."

"I'm going to spend a weekend with him next month. Mom says not to depend on it, but I'm going to."

"Your mother doesn't want you to be disappointed if something comes up."

"He's going to come get me."

"I hope so, Joey. But if he doesn't... Joey..." She touched his arm again and through sheer force of will drew his gaze to hers. "If he doesn't, you have to know that it isn't because of you, but because of his illness."

"Yeah."

He agreed because agreeing was the quickest way to avoid a hassle. Tess knew it, and wished not for the first time that she could convince his parents he needed more intensive therapy.

"Did your mother bring you today?"

He continued to look down, but the anger, at least outwardly, was gone. "My stepfather."

"Are you still getting along with him?"

"He's okay."

"You know, caring for him doesn't mean you care less for your father."

"I said he's okay."

"Any pretty girls at your new school?" She wanted a smile from him, any size, any kind. I guess.

"Guess?" Maybe it was the smile in Tess's voice that had him looking up again. "You look like you have good eyes to me."

"Maybe there's a couple." And his lips did curve a little. "I don't pay much attention."

"Well, there's time for that. Will you come back and see me next week?" I guess.

"Will you do me a favor in the meantime? I said you had good eyes. Look at your mother and your stepfather." He turned his head, but she took his hand and held it. "Joey..." She waited until those dark, unreadable eyes were on hers again. "Look at them. They're trying to help. They may make mistakes, but they're trying because they care about you. A lot of people do. You still have my number, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"You know you can call me if you want to talk before next week."

She walked to the door of her office with him and watched as his stepfather rose and gave Joey a big, bluff smile. He was a businessman, successful, easygoing, and well mannered. He was the antithesis of Joey's father. "All done, huh?" He glanced at Tess, and there was no smile, only tension in his expression. "How'd we do today, Dr. Court?"

"Just fine, Mr. Monroe."

"That's good, that's good. Why don't we pick up some Chinese, Joey, surprise your mom."

"Okay." He bundled into his school jacket, the school he no longer attended. Leaving it unsnapped, he turned back and looked at a point beyond Tess's right shoulder. "Bye, Dr. Court."

"Good-bye, Joey, I'll see you next week."

They were feeding him, she thought as she shut her orifice door. And he was starving. They were clothing him, but he was still cold. She had the key, but she had yet to be able to turn it so that it opened the lock.

With a sigh, she walked back to her desk. "Dr. Court?" Tess answered her intercom as she slipped the Joey Higgins file into the briefcase beside her desk.

"Yes, Kate."

"You had three calls while you were in session. One from the Post, one from the Sun, and one from WTTG."

"Three reporters?" Tess slipped her earring off to gently rub her lobe.

"All three wanted confirmation of your assignment to the Priest homicides."

"Damn." She dropped the earring on her blotter. "Not available for comment, Kate." Yes, ma am.

Slowly, she fastened the earring again. She'd been promised anonymity. That had been part of her deal with the mayor's office. No media, no hype, no comment. The mayor had given her his personal guarantee that she would be able to work without pressure from the press. No use blaming the mayor, Tess reminded herself as she rose to pace to the window. It had leaked, and she would have to deal with it.

She didn't care for notoriety. That was her problem. She liked her life simple and private. That, too, was her problem. Common sense had told her the whole business would come out before it was over, but she'd still taken the job. If she'd been advising one of her patients, she would have told him to face the reality and deal with it one step at a time.

Outside, rush hour traffic was starting to heat up. A few horns blasted, but the sound was muffled by the window and distance. Joey Higgins was out there, riding for Chinese takeout with the stepfather he refused to allow himself to trust or love. Bars were ready to serve the let's-have-a-quick-one-before-dinner crowd. Day care centers were emptying, and throngs of working mothers, single parents, and frazzled daddies were packing up preschoolers and threading their Volvos and BMW's through packs of other Volvos and BMW's with one thought in mind: to get home, to be safe and warm behind the doors and windows and walls of the familiar. It was unlikely that any one of them gave any real thought to someone else who was out there. Someone with a small, deadly bomb ticking away inside his head.

For a moment she wished she could join them in that easy nightly routine, thinking only about a warm supper or the dentist bill. But the Priest file was already in her briefcase.

Tess went back and picked up her briefcase. The first step was to go home and make sure all her calls were screened by her answering service.

***

"Who leaked it?" ben demanded, and blew out a stream of smoke.

"We're still working on it." Harris stood behind his desk, studying the officers assigned to the task force. Ed slouched in a chair, passing a bag of sunflower seeds from hand to hand. Bigsby, with his large red face and burly hands, tapped his foot. Lowenstein stood beside Ben with her hands in her pockets. Roderick sat straight in his chair with his hands folded in his lap. Ben looked as though he would bare his teeth and snarl at the first wrong word.

"What we have to do now is work with the situation. The press knows Dr. Court is involved. Instead of blocking them, we use them."

"We've been getting hammered in the press for weeks, Captain," Lowenstein put in. "Things were just starting to ease off"."

"I read the papers, Detective." He said it mildly. Bigsby shifted, Roderick cleared his throat, and Lowenstein shut her mouth tight.

"We'll set up a press conference for tomorrow morning. The mayor's office is getting in touch with Dr. Court. Paris, Jackson-as heads of the team, I want you there. You know what information we've cleared for the press."

"We don't have anything new for them, Captain," Ed pointed out.

"Make it sound new. Dr. Court should be enough to satisfy them. Set up the meeting with this Monsignor Logan," he added, shifting his gaze back to Ben. "And keep this one under wraps."

"More shrinks." Ben ground his cigarette out. "The first one hasn't told us anything we didn't know."

"She told us he's on a mission," Lowenstein said quietly. "That even though things have been quiet for a while, he isn't likely to be finished with it."

"She's told us he's killing young, blond women," Ben snapped back. "We'd already figured that out."

"Give it a break, Ben," Ed murmured, knowing the temper would be deflected on to him.

"You give it a break." The hands in Ben's pockets balled into fists. "That sonofabitch is just waiting to strangle the next woman who's in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we sit around talking to psychiatrists and priests. I don't give a damn about his soul or his psyche."

"Maybe we should." Roderick looked to the captain first, then to Ben. "Look, I know how you feel, how I guess we all feel. We just want him. But we've all read Dr. Court's profile. We aren't dealing with somebody who's just out for blood, for kicks. If we're going to do our job, I think we'd better understand who he is."

"You get a good look at the morgue photos, Lou? We know who they are. Who they were."

"All right, Paris. You want to let off any more steam, you go down to the gym." Harris waited a moment, drawing the room together with his sense of authority alone. He'd been a good street cop. He was a better desk cop. Knowing it only depressed him occasionally. "Press conference is being set up for eight A.M., mayor's office. I want a report on the meeting with Monsignor Logan on my desk tomorrow. Bigsby, you keep working on where those damn scarfs came from. Lowenstein, Roderick, go back and work on the family and friends of the victims. Now get out of here, go get something to eat."

Ed waited until they'd signed out, covered the corridors, and were crossing the parking lot.

"It's not doing you any good to take out what happened to your brother on Dr. Court."

"Josh has nothing to do with this." But the pain was still there. He couldn't say his brother's name without it hurting his throat.

"That's right. And Dr. Court's just doing a job, like the rest of us."

"That's fine. I don't happen to think that her job has any connection with ours."

"Criminal psychiatry has become a viable working tool in the-"

"Ed, for Christ's sake, you've got to stop reading those magazines."

"Stop reading, stop learning. Want to go get drunk?"

"This from a man carrying sunflower seeds." There was still tension along the back of his neck. He'd lost one brother, but Ed had come along and nearly filled the void. "Not tonight. Anyway, it embarrasses me when you have them pour all that fruit juice in with the vodka."

"A man's got to think of his health."

"He's also got to think of his reputation." Ben opened his car door, then stood jingling his keys.

It was a cool night, cool enough so that you could just see your breath. If it rained before morning, as the starless skies indicated, it would come down in sleet. In their tidy, high-ceilinged row houses, Georgetown's affluent would be setting logs in the fireplace, sipping Irish coffees, and enjoying the flames. The street people were in for a long unpleasant night.

"She bothers me," Ben said abruptly.

"A woman looks like that, she's bound to bother a man."

"Not that simple." Ben slid into his car and wished he could put his finger on it. "I'll pick you up tomorrow. Seven-thirty."

"Ben." Ed leaned over, holding the door open. "Tell her I said hi." Ben shut the door the rest of the way then gunned the engine. Partners got to know each other too well.

***

Tess hung up the phone, and with her elbows on the desk, pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Joe Higgins, Sr., needed therapy as much as his son, but he was too involved with destroying his life to see it. The phone call had resolved nothing. But then, conversations with alcoholics on a binge rarely did. He'd just wept at the mention of his son and slurred a promise to phone tomorrow.

He wouldn't, Tess thought. Odds were he wouldn't even remember the conversation in the morning. Her treatment of Joey hinged on the father, and the father was glued to the bottle-the same bottle that had destroyed his marriage, lost him countless jobs, and left him alone and miserable.

If she could get him to an AA meeting, get him to take the first step... Tess let out a long breath as she dropped her hands. Hadn't Joey's mother explained how many times she'd tried, how many years she'd devoted to prying Joseph Higgins, Sr., away from the bottle?

Tess understood the woman's bitterness, respected her determination to resume her own life and bury the past. But Joey couldn't. All through his childhood his mother had protected him, shielded him from his father's illness. She'd made excuses for the late nights and the lost jobs, believing the truth should be hidden from the boy.

As a child Joey had seen too much, heard more, then had taken his mother's explanations and excuses and built a wall of lies around his father. Lies he was determined to believe. If his father drank, then drinking was okay. Okay enough that at fourteen Joey was already being treated for alcohol addiction. If his father lost his job, it was because his boss was jealous. Meanwhile Joey's grades in school slid down and down as his respect for authority and himself diminished.

When Joey's mother had no longer been able to tolerate the drinking and the break had come, the lies, broken promises, and years of resentment had poured out. She'd heaped the fathers faults on the son in a desperate attempt to make him see the mistakes and not to blame her. Joey hadn't, of course, nor had he blamed his father. There was only one person Joey could blame, and that was himself.

His family had broken apart, he'd been taken out of the home he'd grown up in, and his mother had gone to work. He'd floundered. When Mrs. Higgins had married again, it was Joey's stepfather who had pressed for counseling. By the time Tess had begun to see Joey, he'd had thirteen-and-a-half years of guilt, bitterness, and pain to wade through. In two months she'd barely made a dent in the armor he wore-in their private sessions or the family counseling twice a month with his mother and stepfather.

The rage swept through her so quickly, she had to sit for several minutes and fight it off. It wasn't her function to rage, but to listen, to question, and to offer options. Compassion-she was allowed to feel compassion, but not anger. So she sat with the anger backing up in her, fighting against the control she'd been born with then honed to a professional tool. She wanted to kick something, hit something, strike out somehow at this hateful sense of hopelessness.

Instead she picked up Joey's file and began to make further notes on their afternoon session.

Sleet had begun to fall. She picked up her glasses, but didn't look out of the window, didn't see the man across the street standing on the curb and watching the light in her apartment. If she had looked, had seen, she would have thought nothing of it.

Just as when the knock came she thought of nothing but the annoyance of being interrupted. Her phone had rung incessantly, but she'd been able to ignore that and leave it to her answering service. If one of the calls had been a patient, the beeper beside her would have sounded. The calls, Tess had guessed, had all been connected with the article in the evening's paper, linking her to the homicide investigation.

Leaving the file open, Tess walked to the door. "Who is it?"

"Paris."

A lot could be gleaned from the tone of a voice, even in one word. Tess opened the door, knowing she opened it to a confrontation. "Detective. Isn't it a little late for an official call?"

"Just in time for the eleven o'clock news." He walked over and switched on her set.

She hadn't moved from the door. "Haven't you got a TV at home?"

"It's more fun to watch a circus with company."

She shut the door, peevish enough to let it slam. "Look, I'm working. Why don't you say what you have to say and let me get back to it?"

He glanced over at her desk, at the files open and her big-framed reading glasses tossed on them. "This won't take long." He didn't sit, but stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the news team's intro. It was the pretty, heart-shaped face brunette who read the evening's top story.

"The mayor's office confirmed today that Dr. Teresa Court, noted Washington psychiatrist, has been assigned to the investigation team of the Priest homicides. Dr. Court, granddaughter of veteran Senator Jonathan Writemore, could not be reached for comment. The murders of at least three women are suspected to be linked to the killer termed the Priest because of his use of an amice, a scarf used in ceremony by Roman Catholic priests, to strangle his victims. The police continue an investigation begun last August, now with the assistance of Dr. Court."

"Not bad," Ben murmured. "Got your name mentioned three times." He didn't even blink when Tess strode over and slammed the button to off.

"I'll repeat, say what you have to say."

Her voice was cool. He drew out a cigarette, determined to match her. "We have a press conference at eight tomorrow in the mayor's office."

"I was notified."

"You're to keep your comments general, stay as far away from the specifics of the case as possible. The press knows about the murder weapon, but we've managed to keep the notes and the contents of them from leaking."

"I'm not a fool, Ben. I can handle an interview."

"I'm sure you can. This one happens to be on departmental business, not personal glory."

Her mouth opened, but all that came out was a hiss of breath. She knew it was both undignified and useless to lose her temper. She knew that such a ridiculous and bitter statement deserved no answer. She knew that he, standing there in judgment, deserved nothing but the coolest, most controlled dismissal.

"You bigoted, small-brained, insensitive ass." Her phone rang again, but they both ignored it. "Who the hell do you think you are, barging in here and tossing out your little gems of idiocy?"

He glanced around for an ashtray and settled on a small hand-painted dish. There was a vase of fresh, autumnal mums beside it. "Which gem was that?"

She stood straight as a soldier, while he stood at ease and flicked ashes into the dish. "Let's just get something straight. I didn't leak this business to the press."

"Nobody said you did."

"Didn't they?" She stuffed her hands in the pockets of the skirt she'd worked in for fourteen hours. Her back hurt, her stomach was empty, and she wanted what she struggled so hard to give her patients-peace of mind. "Well, I interpret this little scene differently. As a matter of fact, I was promised my name would never be linked with this investigation."

"Got a problem letting people know you're cooperating with the police?"

"Oh, you're clever, aren't you?"

"As hell," he returned, fascinated by the complete annihilation of her control. She paced as she spoke, and her eyes had deepened to purple. Temper in her was rigid, and icy, unlike the venom-spitting, plate-throwing sort he was more accustomed to. It was all the more interesting.

"Either way I go, you've got an answer. Did it ever occur to you, Detective, that I might not care to have my patients, my colleagues, my friends question me about this case? Did it ever occur to you that I didn't want to take the case in the first place?"

"Then why did you? The pay's lousy."

"Because I was persuaded to believe I could help. If I didn't still think so, I'd tell you to take your case and choke on it. Do you think I want to waste my time arguing with some narrow-minded, self-appointed judge about the morality of my profession? I have enough problems in my life without you adding to them."

"Problems, Doc?" He took a slow sweep of the room, the flowers, the crystal, the soft pastels. "Things look pretty tidy around here to me."

"You don't know anything about me, my life, or my work." She walked over to her desk, leaning her palms on it, but still didn't regain control. "Do you see these files, these papers, these tapes? There's a fourteen-year-old boy's life there. A boy who's already an alcoholic, a boy who needs someone who can open him up enough to see his own worth, his own place." She whirled back again, eyes dark and impassioned. "You know what it is to try to save a life, don't you, Detective? You know how it hurts, how it frightens? Maybe I don't use a gun, but that's just what I'm trying to do. I've spent ten years of my life trying to learn how. Maybe, with enough time, enough skill, enough luck, I'll be able to help him. Damn." She stopped, realizing how far she'd allowed herself to be pushed by a few words. "I don't have to justify anything to you."

"No, you don't." As he spoke, he crushed out his cigarette in the little china dish. "I'm sorry. I was out of line."

Her breath came out with two hitches as she struggled to bring herself back. "What is it about what I do that makes you so bitter?"

He wasn't ready to tell her, to bring that old, fleshed-over scar out in the open for inspection and analysis. Instead he pressed his fingers to his own tired eyes. "It's not you. It's the whole business. Makes me feel like I'm walking a very thin wire over a very long drop."

"I guess I can accept that." Though it wasn't the whole answer, or the one she'd wanted. "It's hard to stay objective right now."

"Let's take a step back for a minute. I don't think much of what you do, and I guess you don't think much of what I do."

She waited a minute, then nodded. "Agreed."

"We're stuck with it." He walked over to her desk and picked up her half cup of coffee. "Got any of this hot?"

"No. I could make some."

"Never mind." He brought his hand up to knead at the tension just above his eyebrows. "Look, I am sorry. It seems like we've been running on this treadmill, and the only progress we've made is a leak to the press."

"I know. You might not be able to understand, but I'm as involved as you are now, and I feel as responsible." She paused again, but this time she felt an affinity, an empathy. "That's the hard part, isn't it? Feeling responsible."

She was too damn good at her job, Ben thought as he leaned back against her desk. "I've got this feeling I can't shake that he's about through waiting to hit again. We're no closer to finding him, Doc. We can bullshit the press some tomorrow, but what we have to swallow is that we're no closer. You telling me why he's killing isn't going to help the next woman he homes in on."

"I can only tell you what he looks like inside, Ben."

"And I have to tell you I don't give a damn." He turned away from her desk to face her. She was calm again. He could see it just by looking at her eyes. "When we get him, and we will, they're going to take this psychiatric profile of yours. They're going to get other ones done, then they're going to put you or some other psychiatrist on the stand, and he's going to get off."

"He'll be confined to a mental hospital. That's not a picnic, Ben."

"Until a team of doctors diagnose him cured."

"It's not as simple as that. You know the law better." She dragged a hand through her hair. He was right, and so was she. That only made things more difficult. "You don't lock someone up because he has cancer, because he can't control the disintegration of his own body. How can you punish someone without taking into consideration the disintegration of his mind? Ben, schizophrenia alone disables more people for a longer time than cancer. Hundreds of thousands of people are confined to hospitals. We can't turn our backs on them or burn them as witches because of a chemical imbalance in the brain."

He wasn't interested in statistics, in reasons, only in results. "You said it once, Doc-insanity's a legal term. Crazy or not, he's got his civil rights and he'll be entitled to a lawyer, and his lawyer will use that legal term. I'd like to see you sit down with those three families after it's done and talk about chemical imbalances. See if you can convince them they've gotten justice."

She had counseled victims' families before, knew too well the sense of betrayal and bitter helplessness. It was a helplessness that without control could spill over to the healer. "You're the one with the sword, Ben, not me. I only have words."

"Yeah." He'd had them, too, and he'd used them in a way he wasn't proud of. He had to get out, get home. He wished he had a brandy and a woman waiting for him. "I'm setting up an appointment with Monsignor Logan tomorrow. You'll want to be there."

"Yes." She crossed her arms and wondered why a bout of temper always left her so depressed. "I have appointments all day, but I can cancel my four o'clock."

"Not too crazy?"

Because he'd made the effort, so did she, and smiled. "We'll let that pass."

"I'll see if I can schedule for four-thirty. Somebody will call you and set it up."

"Fine." There seemed to be nothing left to say, and perhaps more to say than either of them could deal with. "Are you sure you don't want that coffee?"

He did, and more than that, wanted to sit with her and talk about anything other than what was bringing them together. "No, I've got to go. The streets are a mess already."

"Oh?" She glanced toward the window and noticed the sleet.

"Working too hard, Doc, when you don't see what's out your own window." He walked to the door. "You haven't gotten that dead bolt."

"No, I haven't."

He turned with his hand on the knob. He wanted to stay with her more than he wanted that brandy and imaginary woman. "Bogart was okay the other night?"

"Yes, Bogart was fine."

"Maybe we should do it again sometime."

"Maybe."

"See you, Doc. Put on the chain."

He pulled the door closed, but waited until he heard the rattle of the chain lock being fastened.