"Nothing I couldn't handle." She didn't quite meet his glance and kept her hands pressed against the seat. Her heart was pounding, which made them tremble. It Wasn't fear. There'd been no time for fear. It was pure adrenaline pumping through her veins. "He was wearing our rose on his lapel."

"And he sliced his hand open when he squeezed his glass too hard."

Phoebe twisted in the seat to stare at Dewey. "You just had to watch, didn't you?"

"Performance art is nothing without an audience, darling. Brava." He clapped three times, but his eyes looked worried. "He's a lot more unstable than I realized."

"The guy likes little girls, beating women and killing them. Exactly what made you think stable was a word that even remotely applied to him?"

Dewey grinned. "I guess it was that whole running-for-governor scenario. I mean, you sort of assume some level of stability, even factoring in the politician mentality."

"In other words, you didn't really think about it."

His grin was crooked. "Like you, I try not to."

She looked away. "Yeah. Well, what happens next?"

"You go back to your strumming and wailing, and I go help Kevin move. I'm having intimations of impending discovery."

Phoebe looked down the street as they turned the corner and saw the cop-filled block ahead. "I think your intimations were a little late."

"Damn."

"How bad are we screwed?"

"Hard to say. Kev's new to the game, but he doesn't want to go home. He'll hold, for a while anyway."

"So, he'll need a lawyer."

Dewey nodded. "Coldhearted bitch or warmhearted public defender?"

Phoebe studied the truck mingling with the cop cars. There were lots like it, but not with the same tag as Jake's. "Coldhearted bitch."

"Something in black?"

"With a touch of red."

Matt found Jake sitting in the kitchen of the apartment staring at three ice packs in evidence bags lined up in a row on the table as if they held the answer to some cosmic, universal question.

He looked up when Matt came in. "Everything all right?"

"Who knows." Matt picked one pack up by the corner. It slid limply to the bottom of the plastic bag. "Looks like somebody had a run-in with a door-or a fist."

"Yup."

Matt waited for more. When he didn't get it, he added, "So?"

"Look at this." Jake shoved the trash can toward him.

Matt looked inside. "Someone likes pistachios." He hesitated, then said again, "So?"

"Hyatt loves the things."

"Prints?"

"Everywhere." He turned back to the ice packs and rubbed his chin. "With a little luck, some will match Hyatt's." Jake had brought a copy with him for comparison on site to save time.

Matt stared at his brother. "I can keep trying to dig it out of you. I could pound it out of you. Or you could just tell me."

Jake looked up and grinned. "Sorry. I thought you could still read my mind. You always seemed to know when I was going out the window."

"That's 'cause Mom could read your mind and tipped me off."

Jake arched his brows. "Well, I'll be-"

"Do I need to get Mom in here to save your ass from me?" Matt snapped. He jerked a chair around and straddled it.

"Sorry. It's just, this morning I saw an ice pack and pistachios in Phoebe Mentel's kitchen." Jake shrugged. "Could be a coincidence."

Matt snorted. "No shit."

The fingerprint tech stuck his head around the corner and said, "We got a match. It's your guy."

Jake looked at his brother.

Matt stood up and paced away, then turned back to his brother. "You'll need more than an ice pack and a few shells to get a search warrant on her place, but I'll concede, you got yourself an honest-to-goodness lead." He picked up one of the bags again and shook his head ruefully. "Damn, maybe you are magic."

It was a handsome admission, but Jake Wasn't elated. He didn't want to be magic where Phoebe was concerned. She was gutsy and sweet in a prickly cactus kind of way. Put together in a very un-cactus kind of way. This Wasn't the first time he'd felt attracted to a suspect or had regrets at taking one down. But it was the first time it felt like a betrayal. As if he were in league with whoever had put the sad in her eyes. He didn't want to be the one to add another nail to her unhappiness coffin.

"You okay?" Matt broke into Jake's reverie.

Jake pulled out his grin and tried to shake away the ache in his chest that had the same insistence as a tooth going bad. "Sure. Heard anything about the kid's ID yet?"

Kevin's ID looked authentic but was probably more bogus than a hooker?s orgasm-and would take longer than one to unmask if Phagan was running true to form.

"Not yet. I got Alice checking it out."

Jake nodded. "How's the kid doing?"

"He should be about to piss his pants," Matt said, easing the swinging door open so they could study him.

"Looks pretty cool to me," Jake observed. "Maybe he doesn?t know He's been harboring and abetting a federal fugitive." Jake grinned. "Let?s go tell him."

Matt gestured through the door. "After you, Mr. Magic."

Kevin watched the two Marshals approach and braced for the encounter. Stick to the script, he reminded himself, even as he felt sweat slick his body.

The two men stopped in front of him. He had to look a long way up to see their faces and found them filled with a detached pity. They didn't speak, just stood there looking down at him. Kevin fought a compulsion to fill the silence himself.