Leaving it to Jeffers would mean shirking his duties for personal reasons and that was completely unacceptable to him.

Nothing got in the way of his being a cop.

Ever.

It, along with Jake and pride in his heritage, made him what he was.

Who he was.

To step away because he had once thought himself in love with her was

cowardice.

And cowards never slept peacefully.

Graham liked his sleepVery carefully he edged Jeffers aside and placed

himself next to Caitlin.

Next to the woman he once would have died for.

Next to the woman who had killed the part of him that had yearned to be

like everyone else.

Maybe he should be grateful to her, he thought.

She had shown him once and for all that he wasn't like everyone else.

Half-white, half-Navajo, he belonged only in the world that he'd created for himself.

Graham looked at her in silence for a long moment.

"What happened?"

Caitlin raised her head to look into his eyes.

If he thought she was going to look away, he would be disappointed.

She wasn't the starry-eyed girl she'd once been.

He'd seen to that.

Nonetheless, his question erased the years.

For just a fragment of a moment, she wasn't standing here on the outer

edge of a decade and more; she was a girl just out of high school, wondering the same question as she looked down at the token he had given her.

A token of his heritage.

What happened?

A token of his love.

Or so she had foolishly believed.

Her words felt as if they'd traveled a great distance before reaching

her lips.

"You tell me," she whispered, her eyes angry, demanding.

The silence and animosity in the air was thick enough to cut with a

knife.

Jeffers cleared his throat.

After a beat, both sets of eyes turned toward him.

"You made a 911 call," he prompted easily.

His gentle, coaxing voice brought Caitlin back across the years and to

this morning.

Taking a shaky breath, she nodded.

"Yes. Yes, I did."

Caitlin fastened her eyes on the shorter man.

Things would go a lot more smoothly for her if she just concentrated on

him and not Graham.

Graham didn't concern her anymore.

He'd ceased to be a great many years ago.

What there had been between them was dead.

He had killed it.

She had got over that and gone on with her life.

A life she was very proud of.

Without thinking, she placed her hand on top of one of the catalogs.

It grounded her.

This was reality.

Her business, the murder she had witnessed this morning, here and

now.

Not the past.

In a clear, strong voice, she began.

"I was taking a shortcut through the alley between the two strip malls

this morning-" Graham had his pad out, but he wasn't writing.

The sound of her voice was enough to brand the information she was

recitin into his brain.

"What time?" he interjected 9 without looking at her.

"Early, " Caitlin snapped.

Blowing out a breath, she paused to collect herself.

It was bad enough having seen what she had without having Graham

standing here, toppling down the rest of her life as if it were a pile of children's building blocks.

With renewed control she continued.

"I didn't look at my watch, but it must have been before seven."

She remembered glancing at the digital clock on her dashboard as she had rounded the corner to the empty lot.

It had read 6:42.

The clock was off, but not by much.

"It was," she added.

"Just."@ Before seven. She had liked to sleep in, Graham remembered.

It had taken all his persuasive powers to get her to watch the sunrise

with him one Saturday. They had sat on the edge of a ridge and she had leaned her head against his shoulder, stifling a yawn.

He shook off the memory.