He had to ask?

Caitlin strode ahead of him out of t bathroom.

"There are a few things that I need to get off chest."

Her own woman or not, Caitlin looked too worn arou the edges to get

into a confrontation with her mother.

woman was a barracuda.

Regina Cassidy would eat h alive.

He didn't want to see that.

"Don't, Cait. She was only trying to do what was best for you." Caitlin

nearly laughed in his face." That, astute detective, is where you're

wrong.

She was only trying to do what was best for her.

That's a rule she's always lived by.

Regi Cassidy first and everyone else a very distant second.

With that, Caitlin turned on her heel and led the way in the kitchen.

Caitlin couldn't sleep.

She'd always been a good, sound sleeper, able to drop off as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Tonight she lay awake for hours, watching shadows cast by the full moon flirtiilg with the branches of the tree outside her window move back and forth along her ceiling.

She lay awake, tense, waiting, listening to every whisper of the wind, every creak of the house as it shrugged off the heat of the day.

Every noise.

Scenes from this afternoon insisted on haunting her, playing themselves over and over again through her mind like an endless rerun.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw her attacker, a tall, handsome man, his ice blue eyes full of hate as he looked at her.

She had managed to swing around in the alley, just before he'd pushed

her into Gray, and had gotten a good look at him.

Not his profile, like the first time, but his full face.

Caitlin had needed to know what he looked like, needed to be able to

scan a crowd and not be afraid that he was there somewhere, hidden in plain sight because she couldn't recognize who he was.

When Gray had shouted at the killer to stop, he ha turned.

For a brief second, when their eyes met, she'd see the hate.

He hated her and he didn't even know her.

Fear had passed down her spine like a cold, jagged icicle In that instant she knew that her life meant nothing to the man.

He would have snuffed it out as easily as he would have ground out a cigarette beneath the heel of his shoe More easily.

She'd met her own mortality this afternoon and she was afraid.

Somewhere in the distance a dog suddenly howled.

Caitlin bolted upright, ramrod straight, her heart thuddin madly against her rib cage.

Her breath came in irregular snatches.

Shaking, she t to calm herself.

It was just a dog, nothing more.

She was trembling over a dog.

Caitlin scrubbed her face with her hands.

It was no use She wasn't going to get any sleep.

She was too wound up Tension shimmered through her, threatening to make

he come unglued.

She hadn't even been able to vent any of it on her mother She'd called Regina as soon as she'd finished cooking Velma, one of the household staff members who remained on the premises while her mother traveled, had crisply in formed her that Mrs. Cassidy had gone on a short cruise

Conveniently, Velma had no idea what ocean line her mother had booked passage on or how long she would b gone.

The hell she didn't, Caitlin thought angrily.

Velma was following orders not to tell her.

Her mother always left word where she could be reached in case someone

of importan was looking to invite her to a high tea or a lavish part somewhere in the world.

But badgering Velma would have gotten Caitlin no where.

Her mother selected her staff on their ability to their mouths

closed.

If they didn't, they were released.

Instantly "Tell her her daughter wants to speak to her, Velma. That I found out

about the little charade she orchestrated eleve years ago and that

we're going to have a long heart-to-heart about it when she returns.

Tell her to borrow a heart so that she's armed."

There had been silence on the other end and then the woman had nervously promised to relay the message "if Mrs. Cassidy should call home."

Angry tears of frustration had gathered in Caitlin's eyes.

In her own way, despite everything, she loved her mother.

And had Regina made any attempt to be one, even at this late date,

Caitlin would have met her more than halfway.

But Caitlin's father had once told her that tigers couldn't change their stripes.

And so it was with her mother.

There would be no magical transformation into Donna Reed, accompanied

by music by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Caitlin was just going to have to accept that.

She had hung up, far from satisfied.

Nothing could have satisfied her, she supposed, but shouting would have

helped a little.