"No. You don't understand. If you won't take care of the problem, I will."

"What is it you intend to do?"

"Tell Jack Kittrick everything I know, for a start."

"What good will that do? It doesn't give you the proof you need. And believe me, if Kittrick tries to arrest Victoria without sufficient-"

"She's a murderer. She should be put away where she can't hurt anyone else."

"She's the only family I have left."

Maggie turned and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Porter called after her.

"To find Jack Kittrick," Maggie said.

"Please, don't do that, Margaret."

Maggie turned and stopped like a wind-up toy that quits in midmotion when she saw the huge gun in Porter's hand. She could hear the slow, steady thud of her heart and wondered why it wasn't moving any faster. Where was her "fight-or-flight" instinct when she needed it? "Are you planning to use that gun on me?"

"This isn't just a gun. It's an 1851 Navy Colt revolver." He examined it and said, "Quite a relic, actually. Belonged to some ancestor or another-! forget which one."

Maggie shook her head. "I don't believe you'd shoot-even if that gun was loaded, which I doubt. You're not Victoria. You aren't crazy. And you're not a killer."

"Are you suggesting Victoria is crazy?"

"Do you really believe she's not?"

"I could send her out of the country," he said.

"She wouldn't go, and you know it. Texas is the only home Victoria knows. She's like a predator with her territory marked. She'd never give it up. Put the gun down and help me find her before she kills again."

"It isn't loaded," Porter said with a heavy sigh as he opened a side desk drawer and slid the gun back inside.

"I knew that," Maggie said. Sure she had. That's why her heart-which had finally kicked into high gear-was galloping in her chest. Whoa, Nellie. Take it easy. We've got a long way to go yet today.

From her office she called the number Jack had given her for his beeper and waited impatiently for him to call her back. When the phone rang, she grabbed it.

"Hi, there, sweetheart."

Maggie was taken aback by the greeting. She hadn't been called sweetheart for a long time, especially not in such a husky voice. And by someone who had apparently waited for her to call first. Damn him.

She made herself focus on business, when what she really wanted to do was tell Jack she loved him and wanted to spend her life with him. "I have things to tell you. When can we get together, and where?"

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and said, "I have another suspect for you, Jack."

"Victoria Wainwright?"

"How did you know?" Maggie asked.

"All the murders have occurred the same week of the year everyone died in Minneapolis. If you weren't the killer, it had to be her. I've been waiting for Victoria to make a move in the ICU."

"You're waiting for her to kill again?" she asked, frowning.

"I don't intend to let her go through with it."

"Isn't there some way to keep her away from the children altogether?"

"Not without tipping my hand, Maggie. Trust me, I have the situation covered."

"I'm coming over to help," she said.

"Someone will be taking over for me at six. Meet me at the doorway to the second floor stairwell at six-oh-five," he said.

"Why there?"

"Just do it, Maggie." He hesitated and added, "Please."

"All right, Jack." Maggie hung up and headed on foot the few blocks down Travis Street to the hospital. She had barely shoved open the second-floor stairwell door when someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the door. She yelped with surprise and resisted for an instant before she heard Jack say, "I've missed you. Come here and let me hold you."

Then she was in his arms, being hugged tight and liking it a great deal more than she knew she should . . . at least, until she and Jack had done some more talking.

Ask him why he didn't call, a voice said.

Maggie ignored it and said, "Did you have someplace in mind where we can talk privately?"

Jack dragged her down the hall to a room with a hospital bed where the ER physician on call could come to sleep when things weren't busy.

"Are you allowed to be in here?" Maggie asked.

"It's been appropriated for police use," Jack said, ushering her inside. He closed the door, leaned back against it, and pulled her between his splayed legs.

"Jack," she murmured as he kissed her throat beneath her ear. "What if a doctor shows up?"

"He'll have to wait his turn."

Maggie chuckled. "You Texas Rangers are incorrigible."

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. "I hope that means I'm going to get lucky."

"Aren't you supposed to be guarding children?"

"I'm on my dinner break. We have a half hour."

"Shouldn't we do some talking?"

"We can talk later," Jack said. "First things first."

He eased his tongue deep into her mouth, and she returned the favor. Jack's need built quickly, and Maggie's matched it. She felt a new freedom to enjoy life, liberated by the knowledge she wasn't responsible for Woody's death or her father-in-law's demise. The years of self-denial and self-flagellation were finally over, ended by the knowledge of Victoria's part in the tragedy.

"Maggie, I want to be inside you," Jack said urgently as his hand slipped inside her blouse and cupped her breast.

"No more than I want you inside me," Maggie replied.

Jack made an appreciative sound in his throat. "I like the way you think, counselor."

They never made it to the metal-railed hospital bed. Jack turned her so her back was to the door, stripped down her pantyhose, hiked up her skirt, and put himself inside her. It didn't take more than a couple of thrusts before her body convulsed and he climaxed, each of them muffling their cries against the other's shoulder.

"Damn, damn damn," he muttered, when he lifted his head.

"What's wrong?"

"I didn't use any protection."

Maggie stared at Jack. He'd been careful to use a condom each time they'd made love before, because she'd told him she wasn't on any kind of birth control. She'd been glad of his thoughtfulness, because the last thing she wanted was an unplanned pregnancy.

"How could we have done something so stupid?" he said. "It's a little late to ask, but is this the right time of the month for you to get pregnant?"

Maggie couldn't believe she was having this conversation half naked pressed up against a door in the hospital with a man she'd known for barely more than a week. "My period is due in a few days," she said, still half dazed from Jack's lovemaking.

"Thank God for that," he said with a relieved sigh. "Now, where were we?" he said, nuzzling her neck.

Maggie wasn't sure whether to howl with indignation or with laughter. "Wait a minute." She made the referee's sign for a time out.

Jack rearranged his jeans. It wasn't fair that he could be dressed and dignified so quickly while she was reduced to reaching down to her ankles for her pantyhose. She left off her shoes and padded stocking-footed over to the bed. When she started to climb up onto it, Jack caught her at the waist and sat her on the edge.

He eased her skirt up and stepped between her legs, laying his hands on her thighs. She put her arms around his neck and said, "We need to talk, Jack."

"About what?"

"Victoria, for one thing. And us, for another."

"Us?" He nudged her hair away with his nose and kissed her throat. She let him do it because it felt so good, but she knew she had to make him stop or they'd be making love again and nothing she wanted to discuss with him would get discussed.

"You were right, Jack."

"That's good to know," he said with a smile she could feel against her flesh. "Right about what?"

"About women and commitment."

He kissed her lips. "Hmm. What about women and commitment?"

"I don't want to have an affair anymore, Jack. I'm interested in something more permanent."

He withdrew his hands from her thighs, reached up to remove her hands from around his neck, and took a step back. "Would you like to run that by me again? I thought you didn't want to get involved."

"I'm changing the rules, Jack. I want it all."

"You know how I feel, Maggie," he said, his features suddenly stony.

"I see." She crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling nakedly exposed to him, though she was completely dressed.

She slipped off the bed past him, found her shoes, and slipped them on.

"I guess I'd better tell you what I came to say," Maggie said. Before he beat the obviously hasty retreat he had in mind. "I think Victoria may have killed Woody. Porter thinks she might be responsible for her husband's death as well."

Jack came right up behind her. "Say that again."

She straightened her skirt and turned to find herself face to face with Jack. "It seems I'm not responsible for Woody's death, after all. I checked the hospital records in Minnesota. He was recovering before he died suddenly of heart failure."

"Jesus." Jack forked a hand through his hair. "I never suspected that."

"I feel like this giant millstone has been lifted off my shoulders, and I can do more than trudge through the next fifty years of my life," Maggie said. "I can run and dance and play. I want to play, Jack," she said, reaching up to brush at his long sideburns.

He grabbed her hand. "If all you wanted to do was play, I'd be your man, Maggie. But you want more. I don't."

He let go of her and took a step toward the door. He was leaving, and Maggie knew he wouldn't be back. "Do you have to go right now?" She took the step forward necessary to kiss him on the mouth, her lips clinging.

"We have to stop, Maggie," Jack said. But his mouth was hungry on hers. "If you keep kissing me, I'm going to lay you out on that bed, and we'll both be sorry later."

"I'm not ready to let you go, Jack."

Jack suddenly went rigid.

"Jack? What's wrong?"

"Stay here!" He was out the door and headed for the stairwell in a matter of seconds.

Maggie ran after him. "What is it?" she demanded, catching up to him on the third floor stairwell and taking the stairs two at a time with him.

"I thought I told you to wait for me in the doctor's lounge."

"I'm not too good at taking orders. Tell me why we're running up the stairs like a couple of bats out of hell."

"I got a beep-a vibrating buzz-from the detective watching the ICU." Jack grabbed the fifth floor stairwell door and yanked it open. "One of the murder suspects is in there with the kids."

As Roman closed the front door behind him, he called out, "Lisa? Are you home?"

"I'm upstairs, Roman."

He took the stairs slowly, wanting to postpone their confrontation as long as he could. When he looked up, he saw Lisa waiting for him at the top of the stairs.

She was dressed in a pale blue negligee that once upon a time he would have had off of her in nothing flat. He settled on the stairs right where he was and dropped his head in his hands.

"Roman?"