She was being uncommonly strong. Nearly anyone else--man or woman--would be on their knees after the past few days.

"Tell me about him," he said, hoping that talking would help.

"He was a hard man to know. Distant." She started talking, and the words flowed out. "Demanding. For years I did everything I could to get his approval, but nothing seemed good enough. He was furious when I left the district attorney's office. He had plans. A judgeship was the least of them."

"I heard he'd been a prospect for a judgeship."

"It was something he always wanted."

"Why didn't he run for state judge?"

"He wanted the federal bench."

She needed to talk. He felt a little manipulative that he encouraged her to do so. Charles Rawson had been one of his suspects in the murder of Prescott fifteen years earlier. He should warn her. And yet... the closer he came to answers, the safer she would be.

She suddenly went quiet but her eyes searched his as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Telepathy? He had never before felt the kind of connection he felt with her.

"Why did you come here this morning?" she finally asked.

"I thought you might need a friend."

"Are you that?"

"I think so. I'm a good listener."

Emotion swirled in those gorgeous eyes. "Neither of my parents would be nominated for mother or father of the year," she said. "But they were all I had. The only family. Except..."

"The sister you've been trying to find."

"Yes."

"Which makes it all the more important."

"Yes."

"Everything began after you learned about her."

She looked at him, her eyes huge. "Why didn't I pay attention when my father told me to leave it alone?"

"You said he warned you last night. Had he done it earlier?"

She nodded. "After my mother told me about my sister, I confronted him. I asked him if he knew about it."

"Did he?"

"He didn't really answer. He just said it would soil my mother's reputation. And his. I really thought that was the only reason...."

He read the guilt in her face and hated Charles Rawson. The man had been her father, for G.o.d's sake.

"How was he acting last night?"

"Nervous. It was unusual because he usually kept his emotions to himself. He asked me if I'd told anyone about my half sister."

"And you said you had. To me?"

"Not you specifically. To the police."

"Then what?"

"He asked me if I had any idea of what I'd done. Then he left." Tears were in her eyes. "Mrs. Starnes. My father. It's my fault. Why didn't I just leave it alone?"

He wrapped his arms around her again and kissed the area around her eyes. "Because your mother asked you. Because someone is trying to keep a deadly secret. And secrets have a way of surfacing."

"It's my fault," she insisted.

"No, Meredith, it's not. Your parents made choices years ago. I suspect they weren't the wisest choices. I think that's why your father died. Not because of anything you did."

Her body trembled.

He held her against him, then asked the question he had to ask. "Is there any chance your mother might wake from the coma?"

"The doctors don't think so." Then she sat straight, pulling away from him. "Do you think someone might try to kill her, too?"

"Not if she's in a coma. They've already taken too many chances. Perhaps they hoped your father's death would be considered a simple hit-and-run. Your mother's death ..."

"It wouldn't be that difficult, though. She's dying. An extra shot of morphine or--"

"There wouldn't be a reason," he a.s.sured her. "Not unless she regains consciousness. And even then she may not know any more than she told you."

"When is it going to stop?" Her voice trembled. The words were more a plea than a question.

"I don't know," he said. "This sister seems to be the reason behind everything. We can't keep it to ourselves any longer. I have to tell my partner. You have to tell Byers."

She knew he was right. And now it couldn't hurt her father. Or her mother.

She nodded. "Then I have to find my sister, don't I? That's the only way we can unravel this puzzle."

"Yes, but not alone. I don't want you alone from now on."

"That's something else," she said suddenly. "My father said he was going to hire protection for me. He knew something. He wouldn't tell me what."

"Perhaps he left something at his office."

"I'll..." She'd started to say she would go by the office later in the morning, but there were so many other things to do. Visit the coroner's office, for one. Make funeral arrangements. Notify people.

'Her mother.'

She closed her eyes against the enormity of it all.

The best gift she could give to both of them was to find the person who had killed her father, and to find the sister she hadn't known existed. The two must be linked.

But would it result in more deaths?

What had Lulu Starnes known that was so dangerous? Was there a clue in her home? In a sc.r.a.pbook?

And her father. She knew how meticulous he was about his cases. He was a compulsive note taker. Had he left information somewhere?

She knew she was asking the questions to keep other emotions at bay. Her father had never been warm. He had never been much of a father.

But he'd been 'her' father.

She had loved him.

And her mother, for all practical purposes, was gone.

It frightened her that no tears fell. She didn't want to be as cool and detached as they had been. At one time, she had wanted that. It was protection from hurt. Now she wanted to feel sorrow, grief. Instead there was a great chasm inside. Black and fathomless.

"Cry," Gage said. "Let it go."

But she couldn't. She couldn't until she knew why.

Still, she leaned back in his arms and warmth crept into her.

Not the warmth of pa.s.sion, but the warmth of comfort.

*Chapter Eighteen*

'TUCSON'.

Trying to keep her nervousness from showing, Holly entered the Social Security office in Tucson.

A friend of Marty's was baby-sitting Harry at her house. Holly had not wanted to leave Harry in their own rented cottage. She still lived in fear that her husband would find them, s.n.a.t.c.h her son, then lay in wait for her.

She was loath to leave him at all. But a Social Security card was now urgent. She had to have one to get a bankcard, then a driver's license. Holly had rehea.r.s.ed her story over and over again. If it sounded implausible to her, how would it sound to a clerk? But the book she read said that if you failed at one office, try another. Some clerks asked questions; others just accepted the fee and gave you a card.

She had her story together, the birth certificate, a baptismal certificate, a library card, and a rent receipt.

She'd practiced an accent for days. She had been excellent in French in high school and had continued her French studies during the two years she attended college.

She took a seat and waited for the first available clerk, then approached, holding an envelope with her pitiable doc.u.ments.

"'Mademoiselle', I hope you can a.s.sist me," she said with a slight accent.

The woman looked surprised and she gave Holly a smile. "I'll try."

"I have just returned to the States after living abroad since I was a child. My father was American but my mother was French. She left him when I was a child and I grew up in France, even married there. But like my mother, I was unlucky with love, you see. My husband took all we had and ran away with another woman. It was very sad, and I decided to come home. But now I need a job. I was told I must have a card."

The woman looked sympathetic. "You've never had one?"

"'Non', I think not. We left America when I was a child."

"Do you have identification?"

"'Oui'. I have a birth certificate, a baptismal certificate made before we left this country and my library card. I am trying to relearn English again. I hope you will forgive my ... poor--"

"You speak very well," the woman said, glancing over the doc.u.ments. "We really need something with a photo on it, but..."

"I tried to get a bankcard, but the people at the bank said I need one of these numbers, and so does the driver's license office. I have been going around and around, and I am so ... desperate."

"How did you happen to come to Arizona?"

Holly gave her a bright smile. "I read books about... your cowboys. And cactus. I thought, This looks a fine place to live. Not so much rain as France."

The woman hesitated, then nodded. "I think this will be enough."

Holly sighed with grat.i.tude. "'Merci'. I mean, thank you."

"'Merci' will do nicely," the woman said. She gave Holly forms to fill out, then took them back when Holly had completed them.

"Bring by your driver's license when you receive one, and I'll add it to the file," she said.

"You are very kind, 'Mademoiselle' ..." Holly peered at the sign on the desk. "'Mademoiselle' Mackay."

"It is Mrs.," she said. "Welcome back to America."

"I will be very happy here if everyone is like you."

Holly took back her doc.u.ments. The birth certificate. The baptismal certificate she had purchased at a Christian book and gift store, then aged by leaving it outside in the sun.

And was handed her Social Security card.

Her lifeline.

'BISBEE'.

Liz Baker's reaction to her son's brief disappearance had raised a warning flag for Doug Menelo.

She never talked about her past. Never mentioned her husband's name or anything about him. At their first meeting, she'd been more than a little skittish around him. Wary. Even scared.

He had chalked it up to recent widowhood and the uncertainty of facing the dating world again. Now he wondered.