He would do what was smart, what was right, and see her through the arson investigation. And that would be that. Would have to be that.

And to save them both an unpleasant scene, he'd start backing away a little. Starting now.

He rose and grabbed his jacket. He wouldn't go to her place tonight. He looked guiltily at the phone, thinking of calling her, making some excuse.

With an oath, he turned out the lights. He wasn't her d.a.m.n husband, he reminded himself.

He never would be.

Compelled by a nagging sense of unrest, like an itch between his shoulder blades, Ry drove out to Natalie's plant. He'd done a great deal of driving around since he left the station.

It was after ten o'clock now, moonless, windless.

He sat in his car, slumped behind the wheel, and tried not to think of her.

Of course, he thought of her.

She was probably wondering where he was, he figured. She'd a.s.sume he'd gotten a call. She'd wait up. Guilt worked at him again. It was his least favorite emotion. It wasn't right to be inconsiderate, to worry her just because he'd had a scare.

And maybe he wasn't in love with her. Maybe he was just hung up. A man could get hung up on a woman without wanting to slit his throat when she walked away. Couldn't he?

Disgusted, Ry reached for his car phone. The least he could do was call and tell her he was busy. It wasn't like checking in, he a.s.sured himself. It was just being polite.

And since when had he worried about manners?

Cursing, he began to dial.

But the itch came back. Slowly, his eyes scanning the dark, he replaced the phone. Had he heard something? A check of his watch told him the patrol he'd a.s.signed would make their run by in another ten minutes.

No harm, he decided, in taking a look around himself on foot in the meantime.

He eased his door open and slipped out. He could hear nothing now but the faint swish of traffic two blocks away. Cautious, he reached back in the car for his flashlight, but he didn't turn it on.

Not yet, he thought. His eyes were accustomed enough to the dark for him to see where he was going.

Instinct had him heading silently around the back.

He'd already cased the plant himself, noting where the exits were located, the security, the fire doors. He'd make a circle, check each door and window on the main level himself.

He heard it again, the sc.r.a.pe of a foot over gravel. Ry shifted the flashlight in his hand, holding it like a weapon now as he moved closer. Tensed, ready, he slipped through the shadows. If it was the security guard, Ry knew, he was about to give the man the fright of his life. Otherwise...

A giggle. Faint and delighted. The slow, moaning whine of a metal door moving on its hinges.

Ry flashed on his light, and spotlighted Clarence Jacoby.

"How's it going, Clarence?" Ry grinned as the man blinked against the glare. "I've been waiting for you."

"Who's that?" Clarence's voice raced up a register. "Who's that?"

"Hey, I'm hurt." Ry lowered the light out of Clarence's eyes and stepped closer. "Don't you recognize your old pal?"

Squinting, Clarence separated the man from the shadows. In a moment, his baffled face exploded in a wide grin. "Piasecki. Hey, Ry Piasecki. How's it going? You're Inspector now, right? I hear you're an inspector now."

"That's right. I've been looking for you, Clarence."

"Oh, yeah?" Shyly, Clarence dipped his head. "How come?"

"I put out that little campfire you started the other night. You must be losing your touch, Clarence."

"Oh, hey..." Still grinning, Clarence spread his arms out. "I don't know nothing about that. You remember when we got burned, Piasecki? h.e.l.l of a night, wasn't it? That dragon was really big.

Almost ate us up."

"I remember."

Clarence moistened his lips. "Scared you bad, too. I heard the nurses talking in the burn ward about the nightmares."

"I had a few of them."

"And you don't fight fire no more, do you? Don't want to slay the dragon now, do you?"

"I like squashing little bugs like you better;" Ry swung his light down, shone it on the gas cans at Clarence's feet. "What do you know, Clarence? You still use premium grade, too."

"I didn't do nothing." Clarence whirled to make a dash into the dark. Even as Ry leapt forward, the man jerked back, as if on a string.

Staggered, Ry stared at the dark-clad arms that seemed to shoot straight out from the building's wall and wrap around Clarence's neck.

Then it was a shadow flowing out of nothing. Then it was a man flowing out of the shadow.

"I don't believe the inspector was finished talking to you, Clarence." Nemesis kept one arm hooked around Clarence's neck as he faced Ry. "Were you, Inspector?"

"No, I wasn't." Ry let out a long breath. "Thanks."

"My pleasure."

"It's a ghost. A ghost's got me." Clarence's eyes turned up, white, and he fainted dead away.

"I imagine you could have handled him on your own." Nemesis pa.s.sed the limp body to Ry, waiting until Ry had hefted Clarence over his shoulder.

"I appreciate it, anyway."

There was a quick flash of teeth as Nemesis smiled. "I like your style, Inspector."

"Same goes. You want to explain that little trick when you came out of the wall?" Ry began, but he was talking to air before the sentence was finished. "Not bad," he muttered, and was shaking his head as he carted Clarence to the car. "Not bad at all."

The phone awakened Natalie from where she'd dozed off on the couch. Groggy, she stumbled toward it, trying to read the time on her watch.

"Yes, h.e.l.lo?"

"It's Ry."

"Oh." She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "It's after one. I was-''

"Sorry to wake you."