Had she? Somehow, that seemed irrelevant to her now. She felt strangely bereft as she stared dumbly down at him in the darkness. Then she felt his hand curve around the back of her head. He drew her to him and kissed her deeply.

“I wanted that, too,” he whispered. “And now you are. I’m all yours, sweetheart. Do with me what-”

She stopped him with her mouth, laughing, her nose bumping into his and her breasts brushing his chest, and he thought about how much he’d wanted to do just this-laugh with her in his arms. Now it seemed a gentle torment.

She lifted her head and made a happy, growling sound in her throat, then slowly, slowly eased her full weight onto him, bringing her knees up alongside his ribs and sliding her body over his in a lazy, all-over caress. She felt like the softest velvet…the lightest down.

He held himself still…except for his hands, which he allowed to skim over her back from shoulders to buttocks, torturing himself some more. When they reached her bottom-he couldn’t help it-they paused…asked…

But she denied him, chuckled softly and scooted backward, trailing kisses. He groaned, fearing what was coming. Her control was one thing; his was very much in doubt.

She must have known that, because after her lips had left kitten tracks across his abdomen, she moved quickly back astride him, nesting him excruciatingly in her damp feminine softness. He groaned again-he couldn’t help it-and whispered, “Sweetheart-”

She leaned down to kiss him. “I want you, too…inside me. But I…don’t know if I can…this way. It’s been such a long time…”

And so, in the end, it was neither her control nor his, but a mutual joining…and not an easy one, nor painless-she was tight and he was hard. It had been a long time for him, too, but somehow the more satisfying for that.

As they laughed a little, dazed and giddy, he drew her down to him and raised his knees behind her to make of himself a cradle for her body, and holding her close, touching her everywhere he could, began to rock her, slowly at first, mindful of her tenderness.

His mind was full of her. Images of her, in all the ways he remembered: fairy princess, woodland sprite; pointing a gun at him; glaring silver-eyed from the back of a police car; lying bandaged and bruised in a hospital bed; sun-dusted and blind, picking wildflowers. But the memory that came to him most clearly-fierce and tender in his mind-was his own impression from way back then, almost at the beginning: she’s real.

Yes…real. Her femininity warm and pulsating around him, her body strong and supple in his arms, her lips tender and soft under his…neither princess nor sprite, hijacker nor saint, just a woman-powerful, vulnerable…human.

And the codicil, lovely as a sonnet: She’s mine.

The thought ignited in his mind, exploded and took off like a skyrocket…a shooting star. Soaring with it, he forgot to be tender and careful, slow and gentle. He forgot everything except how much he loved her, the joy and the certainty of that, and the miracle that she was here with him in his bed…warm, real…and that she’d come to him on her own. She’d come to him.

Dazed and enraptured, he opened wide his heart and mind, his body and soul, and returned the gift to her the only way he knew how.


C.J. Starr was a happy man as he babied his big blue Kenworth up the grade of the Blue Ridge Mountains, heading north. He had it all-clear weather, the road ahead dry and dusty, a sweet and powerful diesel engine humming along under him, reefer trailer loaded with North Carolina apples, and the woman he loved-the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on-waiting for him back home in Georgia. One day soon he’d take and pass that bar exam, find a nice little town somewhere in the South that could use another old-fashioned family-type lawyer, buy a big old house with a nice big staircase and plenty of bedrooms, and then he’d marry Caitlyn and they’d see about getting those bedrooms filled up with kids.

Kids. When he thought about kids, a face came into his mind, like a small shadow over his happiness: a thin, pale face with chin-length black hair with bangs cut straight across and great big black eyes-scared, hungry refugee eyes. Maybe, he thought, the first one of those kids could be adopted.

Yeah, he thought, smiling to himself, that’s what we’ll do. When this is all over. When Vasily is put away. When Caitlyn is safe. We’ll find Emma, Caty and I, and bring her home to live with us.

The other little cloud in his blue sky wasn’t as easy to define or to banish. It had to do with the way things had ended with Caitlyn last night.

He’d wanted her to stay with him, of course. He’d have loved to spend the night sleeping with her body curled up next to his, the scent of her hair in his nostrils…wake up in the morning and see her face smiling at him across the rim of his coffee cup. But she’d insisted on having him drive her back to his mother’s house. And hadn’t that given him a weird feeling, to walk her into his momma’s kitchen while his body still throbbed with hunger for her, his appetite for her in no way quenched.

Outside, in the glow of the yard light he’d held her and kissed her one more time, missing her already, but when he would have told her he loved her, she stopped him with fingertips pressed against his lips. Those silver eyes of hers had gazed for a long intense moment into his-he’d swear, it was almost as if she could see him-and then, just before she’d stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, she’d said, with a funny little break in her voice, “Thank you for this night.”

Thank you for this night. As if, he thought, she didn’t expect to have another.

The notion put a chill in his heart and a weakness in his knees, so the next truck stop he came to he pulled off the interstate. Most likely he was making something out of nothing. Most likely all he needed was a dinner break.

He was sitting in the driver’s section of the restaurant having his usual on-the-road dinner of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy and coleslaw, keeping half an eye on the overhead television, which was once again tuned to CNN Headline News. He’d watched, without paying real close attention, the usual pentagon briefing on the military buildup in the Middle East and the war on terrorism, and pictures of the devastation caused by the latest hurricane down in Cuba. Then he saw something he didn’t quite believe at first. When he did believe it his hands went numb and the bite of steak he’d just taken turned to grit in his mouth.

Caitlyn.

There she was, big as life, plain as day…talking to someone, looking, not at the camera, but at some interviewer off to the side. For an instant he dared to hope it was old footage, an update on the case, maybe. But no-the short, pale hair, cut in feathered layers like the petals of a chrysanthemum, couldn’t quite hide the healing scar that slashed across her forehead.

The camera moved back, and he saw that she was sitting on a sofa in what looked like one of those made-up TV interview sets, with shelves full of books and a big vase of flowers behind her. Beside her on the sofa was C.J.’s sister-in-law, Charly-his own lawyer. And sitting in the chair facing those two was someone else he knew-Eve Waskowitz, the TV documentary filmmaker. Wife of Special Agent Jake Redfield of the FBI.

Caitlyn was speaking. Belatedly, C.J. tore his eyes from the women and focused on the closed captioning.

…nine o’clock tomorrow morning.

Interviewer: Will you be disclosing the whereabouts of Emma Vasily?

Caitlyn Brown: My position on that hasn’t changed. I’ve said I don’t know where she is. I still don’t. And I will not disclose my contacts, so…

Interviewer: And are you prepared to go back to jail?

Caitlyn: I guess that will be up to the judge to decide.

Interviewer: Ms. Brown, what made you decide to turn yourself in? If you don’t intend to obey Judge Calhoun’s order-

Caitlyn: I never intended to spend the rest of my life as a fugitive. I just needed some time to heal…the shock of getting shot…Mary Kelly murdered…and then losing my eyesight. I didn’t know whether I was going to be blind-

Interviewer: So, as I understand it your eyesight has returned.

Caitlyn: Yes, that’s right. Not all the way yet-I see indistinctly and not really in color-sort of the way you see when there isn’t much light. It’s getting better all the time. The doctors said there was a chance it would come back as the swelling went down and it looks as though they were right.

Interviewer: I know you must be so happy.

Caitlyn: Well…relieved might be a better word. How can I be happy when Mary Kelly is still dead? She isn’t ever going to get well.

Caitlyn’s face disappeared. Now there was the anchorman again, and the white-on-black rectangles ticking across the screen: You can catch the rest of Eve Redfield’s exclusive interview tonight on…

C.J. didn’t see anything more. Next thing he knew he was on his feet with his dinner check in his hand, staring down at what might as well have been written in Chinese. He remembered throwing some money on the table and walking outside into a crisp autumn night. He remembered standing beside his truck, leaning his forehead against the cold steel door and waiting for the ground to stop heaving under his feet.

Déjà vu, that’s what it is. This can’t be happening again. It can’t be.

He was about to climb into the cab when some sort of instinct-self-preservation, maybe-stopped him. He was in no condition to drive. He’d be an eighty-thousand-pound menace on the road if he did, a disaster looking for a place to happen.

He took deep breaths to steady himself, then walked slowly around the tractor-trailer, checking his lights and brake lines, plodding methodically through all the steps of a complete safety check, forcing himself to concentrate on that. Little by little his mind cleared, and the sense of shock and betrayal that had just about swamped him began to recede. And when it did, he realized he wasn’t angry with her. He was barely even surprised. Caty’s stubborn. When she sets her mind to do something, she goes ahead and does it, and doesn’t count the cost.

Thank you for this night. He ought to have known, when she said that, the way she’d said it. The way she’d looked at him with that silver light in her eyes.

He wasn’t angry or surprised, but he was disappointed. Disappointed she hadn’t shared with him the incredible fact that her eyesight had come back. That hurt, way deep down inside, more than he wanted to admit or even think about. Disappointed, too, that she hadn’t trusted him enough to let him in on what she was planning to do.

Trust you? a little voice way back in his mind mocked him. Why should she trust you? Aren’t you the one that turned her in to the cops the last time she did that? And be honest, Calvin James Starr, wouldn’t you have tried to stop her this time, too?

His answer to that was: You’re damn right I would.

Because what he was most of all was scared to death. He knew exactly what Caitlyn was trying to do, with her television interview, announcing to the world her intention to turn herself in, even giving the exact time and place. She was staking herself out like a lamb in a clearing, to lure the tiger-Vasily-into the open. And it would probably work; he had an idea that most of the time in situations like this, the tiger ended up dead. Only thing is, most times the lamb did, too.

Nine o’clock tomorrow morning…

Cold washed over him and settled in the pit of his stomach. At nine o’clock tomorrow morning the woman he loved was going to walk into a killer’s gunsight, and he was roughly six hundred miles away from being able to do anything to stop her. Six hundred miles. His only hope of getting there in time was to drive nonstop for ten hours and pray for good weather and no traffic tie-ups.

He took his cell phone out of its belt holster and punched in Charly’s number. After five rings her voice mail picked up. He didn’t leave a message. He didn’t have Jake Redfield’s number with him, so he called information and got the Bureau headquarters in Atlanta. After a couple of transfers and some waiting around he was told that Special Agent Redfield was on assignment. Was there someone else who could help him? Would he like to leave a message? C.J. said, “No, thank you,” and disconnected.

His mind was clear and calm now, as he climbed into the cab of the idling Kenworth and turned on the running lights. A few minutes later he was roaring back onto the interstate, this time heading south.