"What were you doing in the alley that early?"

His voice was so cold, so angry.

As if he had reason to blame her for something.

Why, Gray?

Didn't the money last you long enough?

Is that why you're angry?

She raised her chin defensively.

"I iwis coming in to do inventory before the shop opened."

She gestured toward the front of the store, the tips of her fingers hitting the light yellow curtain.

"In case you haven't noticed, the city is repaving the parking lot in front of my store, so I had to park my car three blocks away. I was taking a shortcut."

Except it didn't turn out to be that short.

Graham nodded, but said nothing.

It annoyed her more than she could say, though she couldn't explain

why, even to herself.

Like a wounded animal, bent on self-preservation, she looked toward Jeffers.

The encouraging expression on his face urged her on.

"I heard raised voices, two men arguing. And then..."

She paused, her voice growing small as she attempted to distance

herself from the horror she had seen.

If she framed it as a scene from a bad movie, she could handle it.

Caitlin began again.

"And then I saw the taller man shoot the other one."

She swallowed.

"It was just a pop."

Like a firecracker, she thought.

Like something harmless.

Except that it wasn't.

"He must have had a silencer on it. It didn't sound like a gun at

all."

Jeffers raised his brows.

"Are you familiar with the way guns sound?"

The question was so casually stated, it took her a moment to assimilate

it.

"She used to go to the handgun range," Graham answered for her.

His voice was as quiet as the calm before the storm.

Caitlin frowned, hating the intrusion.

Hating the fact that he knew anything about her.

That he knew everything and had still left.

"My father wanted me to know my way around guns to protect myself," she

explained to Jeffers a little too quickly, trying to blot out the sound of Graham's voice from her head.

Jeffers took the information down.

"Against anything in particular?"

The smile on Graham's face had no underpinnings.

"Undesirables."

His tone was mild, belying the pain that shimmered just beneath, the

pain he had thought he'd come to terms with a long time ago.

He had always known that there was no point in harboring bitterness within his soul. Bitterness just ate away at you, eroding you like the steady drip of battery acid.

It dishonored his way of life.

It annoyed him that a trace of it was still there, after all this

time.

His dark brown eyes shifted to her blue ones and held for a small piece

of eternity.

From where Jeffers stood, it looked like a contest of wills.

Very deliberately he cleared his throat again.

It took longer to get their attention this time.

Caitlin dragged her eyes away, toward Jeffers.

He couldn't read them.

"Getting back to this morning-?"

He waited for her to continue with her story.

She shrugged.

There wasn't much to add.

"I ran," she said simply.

Good survival instincts.

Lots of people froze with fear in adverse situations, like people in

the path of oncoming cars who stood rooted as the vehicle sped toward them.

"Did you get a good look at him?"

An image flashed through her mind.

The man holding the gun.

Firing.

The other man crumpling.

She tried to summon the other's face, but it refused to materialize.

"Not really. Just part of his profile."