knuckles looked as if they would break through the skin.

His eyes shifted to his mother's.

"She can't have him," he repeated fiercely.

"Have who?"

Graham turned to see Jake walking into the kitchen.

Jake was wearing one of Graham's old T-shirts that was legions too

large for him.

But his son liked wearing his old clothes.

He said it gave him something to grow into.

Celia would have to kill him before she got the boy.

"Nobody you know about."

Playfully he pushed the brim of Jake's baseball cap down until it

covered his eyes.

He constrained his emotions behind a carefully constructed wall 11 that

he had built, brick by brick, over the long years of enduring the trials that life saw fit to throw people who were considered different.

"What say we have dinner and then settle back and watch the end of the game?"

The television screen just barely visible behind Jake in the family room was blank.

He'd turndd it off in disgust.

-JAke waved a dismissive hand toward it.

"Ah, it's hopeless."

Graham draped his arm around the slight shoulders.

"Nothing," he commented a bit too fiercely, "is ever hopeless."

Maybe, Graham thought, catching the mildly surprised look on his

mother's face, if he said it often enough he'd actually believe it.

Morning proved no better.

Graham hadn't been able to reach Celia's lawyer.

A very cool secretary had informed him that Mr. Wells was in court for

the morning and that she would pass on his message to him.

Since he had no idea where Celia was, there was nothing to do but wait.

He felt antsy as he hung up the receiver.

Maybe it was time to send out feelers and try to locate her.

He hadn't attempted to find her before because he honestly hadn't

wanted to.

He had remained married to Celia for Jake's sake.

And for Jake's sake, he had given her the divorce she'd asked for when

she had declared a need to find her identity.

Jake deserved something better than to grow up listening to his parents constantly argue.

But he needed to know where she was now, needed to make a move.

He wasn't the type to just sit back and wait for things to happen to

him.

He liked knowing the kinds of cards fate was dealing out.

You couldn't make a countermove if you weren't prepared.

He glanced at the folder with Caitlin's name written across it.

Another unexpected twist.

Damn, but life was getting complicated.

"Have you seen this?"

The question was punctuated by the thud of a newspaper falling on his

desk.

Jeffers stood next to him, frowning.

Graham didn't bother looking at the paper.

Jeffers was always getting worked up over some political issue or

other.

Graham found it prudent not to get into those kinds of discussions with

him.

"I haven't caught up to last month's news."

Graham moved the folded section aside.

Just as smoothly, Jeffers moved the newspaper back.

He stabbed a forefinger at the lower right-hand corner.

"Read this." I Since Jeffers seemed so determined, Graham picked up

the newspaper and glanced at the story, which barely represented five

inches of print. Caitlin's name sprang up at him as if it had been

highlighted by a yellow felt-tip marker.

There wasn't much of a story, just enough to let the killer know that he had been seen and the identity of the person who had seen him.

Graham dropped the newspaper on his desk again.

"Oh, God."

"Exactly."

Jeffers nodded grimly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

The potential damage that those few lines of print could do was enormous.

Graham wondered if Caitlin had seen it yet.

Or, more important, if the killer had.

He began to reach for the telephone.

"Redhawk, Jeffers, in my office."

Martinez's voice sliced through the din in the office like a sharp rapier.

"Now."

Jeffers and Graham exchanged looks.