the number six aroufid his neck.

Horace Taylor stared toward the mirrored ilass as if he knew- exactly

where she was standing.

Where she was looking.

It was hard for her not to flinch.

"I'm sure."

Graham nodded.

Leaning over to a speaker that was connected directly to the other

room, he flipped a switch, turning it on.

"Take number six down and book him," he instructed the policeman on the other side of the glass.

"Tell the others they can go."

He flipped the switch into the Off position before looking at Caitlin

again.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded.

Number six was glaring directly at her, though she knew he saw only his

own reflection.

Malevolence emanated from him as he was led off.

He didn't act like a man who was afraid of what was in store for him.

H looked like a man planning his revenge.

"Who is he?"

She looked unsteady on her feet.

Graham instinctively took hold of her arm.

"A lowlife who won't bother you again."

Caitlin pulled her arm away.

She wanted to know the truth.

"Don't wrap tissue paper around me, Gray. I'm a bi girl. A big girl

who was almost kidnapped yesterday by some crazy man who would have killed me as easily as he would have spit on the sidewalk. Now, who is he?"

Graham paused, exchanging looks with the policeman i the room.

The other man understood the unspoken message and left the room.

Graham folded his arms before him as he leaned a hip against the small

table that housed the speaker and looked at Caitlin.

He didn't want her dirtied the slime that existed in the world he dealt with.

But she a ready had been.

"His name is Horace Taylor."

Methodically he gave Caitlin a rundown of the man's priors.

They were extensiv and made her flesh creep.

"He's also suspected of fingering his former boss for hit," Graham

concluded.

"He's entrenched with some group in Phoenix. A drug cartel. He's added that to his list of connections."

There was always a new group, he thought, and it was a ways the same.

The new wiped out the old and made t same mistakes.

The only difference was that it alw seemed to get uglier.

Caitlin was trying her damnedest to look unfazed, but could see that

she was shaken.

"Do you want me to take you home?" he asked.

She wasn't a hothouse orchid that fell apart at the slightest thing, but

this was a little bit too real for her to a similate in a few minutes.

It was almost time to close u shop, anyway.

She nodded.

"Yes."

And then she smiled.

"Kerry is getting to think that this is becoming a habit."

His hand on her shoulder, he guided her to the door.

"Doesn't the boss lady get to kick back?"

I INot if she wants to continue being the boss of something.

" Caitlin walked through the doorway and waited for him to join her.

" Bosses work harder than anyone.

They have to.

She glanced at the closed door of the other room, the one Taylor had

just been in.

"Don't think about it," Graham told her.

"It's over."

But they both knew it wasn't.

Not really.

There was still the trial to face.

In the parking lot Caitlin walked over to the dark sedan, ready to get

in.

But Graham took her arm and nodded at the pink Cadillac convertible parked beside it.

She looked at him quizzically.

"That's the department's car," he reminded her, indicating the sedan.

"This one's mine. With Taylor behind bars, I'm not on bodyguard detail

anymore. I'm on my own time now."9 His own time.

And how much of that would she, get to share with him?

Questions multiplied in her mind as she got into the car.