Before Bryn got her hand on the doorknob, Jake saw his biggest brother, Luke. He was an older version of Matt, more weathered, but a tad softer. Not that Jake spent much time comparing his brothers. How could he when next to Luke was a...woman. No, he thought, dazed. Make that a woman.

Dressed in sexy, slinky black, she sliced through air and space like a weapon, wearing heels so high she should have needed oxygen. Her dark hair swung on either side of green eyes and a mouth so red it almost made his eyes bleed just looking at it.

"Kid's lawyer," Luke said, trying not to laugh.

She was close enough now for Jake to see that she had nothing on under the power-suit jacket. He almost went up on his toes to confirm this, but his toes lacked the needed stiffness, which was all concentrated in one central place in his body.

Jake knew he needed to say something, anything, but nothing sprang to mind except "Damn!" Couldn't say that out loud. Actually, he Wasn't sure he could say anything at all. The moisture in his throat and eyes went right up in the smoke of her gaze. Nothing he could do to get it back. He just felt lucky his eyes didn't fall out and roll across the floor, where she could impale them with her heels.

He sort of knew that Bryn was staring at him, but that didn't stop his jaw from dropping or his tongue from trying to fall out the opening. When the lawyer passed him, he turned in concert with his brothers and watched her move through the door to the interrogation room.

The kid looked as shocked as Jake felt, but at least the glass provided Jake with a small measure of protection-enough for his power of speech to return anyway, he thought, rubbing the back of his neck. At least he was hoping it would return.

"I'd like to be a fly on the wall in there," Matt said, not quite flattening against the glass but not far from it.

"That wall." Luke pointed to the one that would give the best view of the lawyeR's impressive cleavage.

Jake laughed and found it helped clear his head. Bryn's frown further boosted the process. "What I'd like to know," he said, "is how she knew the kid needed a lawyer when he hasn't made his call or even been formally charged yet?"

That got Matt and Luke's attention, but Bryn was the one with the answer.

"Classic Phagan maneuver. We gotta find a way to block bail or we'll never see the kid again."

Matt and Luke paused in their gawking to give Bryn politely incredulous looks. Her answering smile lacked humor.

"Trust me. This guy could make the Statue of Liberty disappear," she said.

Luke rubbed his face and scowled at the oblivious lawyer through the glass. "Like to help you take this Phagan bastard and his gang down. Hate people who prey on abused kids."

Jake felt his defenses come up at his brotheR's words, but before he could speak in Phoebe's possible defense Bryn said with more than a hint of defensiveness in her own voice, "He doesn't exactly prey on them. At least, not the way You're thinking."

Both Jake's brothers turned to stare at her as if they couldn't quite believe what they were hearing. They were so much alike, that it was almost spooky.

Bryn was still staring at Kevin and his lawyer, so she didn't know she was in trouble yet. "You're thinking He's like Fagan in Oliver Twist, but it's not like that at all. He also, well, helps them."

The silence that followed these words seeped into her distraction and alerted her too late to the danger. With lifted chin she turned to face their amusement.

"Are you saying," Luke asked, "He's a good thief?"

She stared at him for a long moment before replying with tight annoyance, "Of course not. But, well, he does get these kids in school, he finds them places to live, helps them become...useful citizens." The polite incredulity in his brothers' faces slowed her down some, Jake noted with an inward grin. "At least, That's what the word on the street is. His actual...band...of thieves is a very small, very limited...group. And their targets are not even close to being upstanding citizens."

She kept her chin up and gave them a cold stare, then turned back to the window, leaving Jake to grin at his brothers.

"Actually,"-Jake offered a bit of support, since he happened to agree with her-"their targets are downright gnarly."

"And if," Luke asked, "we figure out who their current target is here, we have to protect them?"

Jake nodded, noting out of the corner of his eye that Bryn started to say something, but then stopped. He made a mental note to probe this later, when they were alone.

"Well, that sucks."

Jake nodded again.

"Maybe we shouldn't try so hard here?"

Matt shook his head as if he couldn't quite believe their attitude. "If we identify their target, how about we take him out ourselves?" He pointed his hard gaze at Luke, then at Jake before asking, "I supposed you've tried to infiltrate?"

"Of course." This question put Bryn back on more comfortable ground. "But we couldn't come up with a cover deeper than Phagan could penetrate. We even tried using actual runaways."

"What happened?" Luke asked.

Bryn compressed her lips into a grim line, then opened them far enough to admit, "He turned them. He has a reputation for being quite the...charmer."

It was obvious to a blind man that this was touchy ground for Bryn, and neither Jake nor his brothers were blind. As one, they all gave silent whistles and turned to the far more fruitful activity of pondering the wickedly attractive lawyer in the interrogation room, who now had Kevin grinning like an idiot.

Phoebe closed her briefcase and stood up to leave. When the curtain of her hair swung forward to cover her face, she told Kevin, "They'll move you to juvie after I get done with them. Hang tight. We'll have you out of there before they can spoil your palate."

Kevin stood up and wiped his hand on the side of his ragged jeans before taking the hand she held out to him. "Uh, thanks."

His voice cracked in the middle, but Phoebe pretended not to notice. She'd stayed longer with Kevin than she'd planned to, because of a mix of pity for his obvious terror and her own self-preservation. She'd needed the time to achieve internal equilibrium again. She could feel Jake watching her through the one-way window. Coldhearted bitch had definitely been the right choice.

It had been quite a shock to come face to face with him, especially so close on the heels of running into his brother the DPD cop. Jeez, looked like the whole family was into law enforcement, though she still Wasn't sure exactly what Jake was. She sure knew how to pick a guy to lust after. If Phagan ever found out, there'd be no virtual reality peace for her ever again.

She gave Kevin's clammy hand one last, comforting squeeze, squared her shoulders and turned to face her problem. At least she'd soon know exactly what he was and what she was up against.

The impact of Jake's gaze was every bit as unnerving as she'd expected it to be. To avoid direct eye contact, she pulled out fake business cards and handed them around.

"He's got nothing to say," Phoebe said in a clipped northeastern accent that she'd picked up on a gig with the band many years ago, "and you?d better move him to juvenile detention or your asses are grass. I feel certain that you'll charge him within the required time?"

With smiles that were half-dazed, half admiring, and one that was very bitter, the three men and one woman handed her their cards.

Luke signaled to a uniform. "Move the kid to juvenile," he directed, then turned back to Phoebe. "You'll be the first to know when we file charges, ma'am."

"Thank you." She turned and found Jake looking at her, a frown between his wild-boy brows. Time to get the heck out of Dodge before he figured out what puzzled him. It took all her control not to let any sign of recognition light her glassy green eyes. Her fingers gripped the handle of the briefcase so tightly that her arm ached. Turning away from him was like breaking free of gravity. She didn't lose the force of his pull until she was outside.

Dewey was waiting, but she wished he Wasn't. She needed time and some space to regroup. During that Maine gig, where she'd acquired the accent, she'd taken an early-morning walk down to the wild, rocky shoreline. The wind roaring in from the sea had almost knocked her back on her heels. She'd dug in and taken the buffeting until she was tired enough to sleep again.

That's how she felt now, only this time the wind Wasn't coming from just one direction. It was hard to dig in her heels against this multi-directional buffeting. Her instinct was to hit the ground and hope it all would pass her by, but that instinct had to be suppressed. She'd brought this on herself by trailing her cloak in front of Harding. As always, there was no retreating, only forward until some kind of ending was reached. Then it wouldn't matter what happened.

She felt the sun's light hit her without giving warmth. She missed warm, missed the warm she'd felt around Jake. There was tonight, she reminded herself. He was meeting her at the bar. It Wasn't wise to look forward to it, now that she knew he was a federal marshal. Course, if she'd been wise, she wouldn't be getting into a limo next to a thief.

This made her smile as she climbed in beside Dewey.

"I take it things went well?"

"He'll hold," Phoebe said. "But He's made some interesting new friends." She handed him the business cards she'd collected. She should tell him about Jake, but she didn't think she without giving away more than she was ready to.

Dewey studied the cards, his eyebrows arching like rising half-moons. "Impressive. Kev's definitely hit the big time."