There's something in us that stops that, that makes us decent."

"Some of us are more decent than others." "Answer me this. Have you ever hit a child?" "Of course I haven't. Christ."

"Ever beat or raped a woman?"

He sat up so she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist.

"I've thought about giving you a quick shot now and again." He balled his fist, tapped her chin gently with his bruised knuckles. "I know what you're saying, and you're right. We're not what they were.

Whatever they did to us, they couldn't make us what they were."

"We made ourselves. Now, I guess, we make each other." He smiled at her. "That was well said."

"They didn't give me a name." She let out a slow breath. "When I remembered that, back there, it hurt. It made me feel small and useless. But now I'm glad they didn't. They didn't put their label on me. And, Roarke, right now anyway I'm glad I came here. I'm glad I did this. But what I want to do is get the information to the locals and get out. I don't want to stay here longer than I have to. I want to go home tonight."

He leaned into her. "Then we'll go home."

They got back to New York early enough for her to be able to say she needed to go into Central and make it sound plausible. She didn't think Roarke bought it, but he let it slide.

Maybe he understood she needed the space, she needed the work.

She needed the atmosphere that reminded her who and what she was at the core.

She bypassed Peabody's cube, slipped quietly into her office, and shut the door. Locked it, as she rarely did.

She sat at her desk and was absurdly comforted at the way the worn seat fit to the shape of her butt. A testament, she thought, to all the hours she'd sat there, doing the job-the thinking, paperwork, 'link- transmissions, data-formulating part of the job.

This was her place.

She got up and walked to the window. She knew just what she would see, which streets, which buildings, even the most usual pattern of traffic that formed at that time of the day.

The part of her that was still quaking, the part she'd used every ounce of will to hide from Roarke, calmed just a little more. She was where she was meant to be, doing what she was meant to do.

Whatever had come before, all the horrors, the fears, all funnelled into the now, didn't they? Who could say if she would be here without them. Maybe, somehow, she was more willing to live for the victim because she'd been one.

However it worked, she had a job to do. She turned, walked back to her desk, and got to work.

She asked for and was granted a quick meeting with Mira. Slipping out as quietly as she'd slipped in, she left her office for Mira's. "I thought you might be gone for the day."

Mira gestured to one of her cozy scoop-backed chairs. "Shortly.

Tea?"

"Really, this isn't going to take long." But Mira was already programming her AutoChef. Eve resigned herself to sipping the liquid flowers Mira was so fond of.

"You'd rather coffee," Mira said with her back turned. "But you'll indulge me, which I appreciate. You can always pump in the caffeine later." "How do you-I was just wondering how you keep it going on that herbal stuff."

"It's all what your system's used to, isn't it? I find this soothes my mind, and when my mind's soothed, I have more energy. Or believe I do, which is nearly the same thing." She came back, offered Eve one of the delicate cups.

"In other words, you bullshit yourself into thinking you're wired up, when you're not." "That's one way to put it."

"That's sort of interesting. Anyway, I have more data on Julianna Dunne, and I wanted to get it to you right away. I don't think we have much time before she moves again. I interviewed her stepfather-"

"You went to Dallas?"

"I just got back about an hour ago. I want to do this now," Eve said firmly enough to have Mira arching her brows. "Okay?" "All right."

She relayed the contents of the interview, citing only the facts given, then moving on to her discussion with Chuck Springer.

"The first man she was with sexually-boy, that is- was someone her own age," Mira commented, "and working-class. And he was the first to reject her. The last, by all accounts, who was permitted the luxury of doing so. She hasn't forgotten it."

"Yet she didn't target types like Springer. She went after types like her stepfather."

"Because she was sure she could control them. They built her confidence and her bank account. But she was punishing Springer every time she was with another man. Look at this, look what I can have. I don't need you. Along the way, Springer became less of a personal affront and more a symbol. Men are worthless, liars, cheats, weaklings, and driven by sex."

"And wouldn't it irritate her to know that on a core level, she's the one driven by it."

Mira lifted her brows, nodded in approval. "Yes, exactly. You understand her very well. Springer said that they'd had sex after he'd broken it off with her, after she'd physically attacked him. It only showed her sex was the key, and in her mind, man's fatal downfall.

She stopped being angry, and got down to the business of using that weakness to satisfy herself."

"That plays for me. But I can't figure who she'll go for next. I ran probabilities on Parker, on Springer, and on Roarke. Parker and Springer are neck- in-neck, with Roarke more than twenty percentage points behind them. I trust your opinion more than a computer's."

"It won't be Springer. Not yet. She may toy with him a bit more, but I believe she'll save him. Like a cat plays with a mouse before the kill. Her stepfather? It's possible, but I'd think she'd wait on him as well. He was her first real victory, a kind of practice tool. She'll want to savor him yet."

Mira set her tea aside. "I think, despite the results of the probabilities, it'll be Roarke, or someone else entirely. She's not finished here yet, Eve. She's not finished with you."

"That's the way I worked it, too. I'm going to keep him covered, and that's going to piss him off. But he'll get over it. Okay, thanks. Sorry, to have held you up."

"Are you all right?"

"A little shaky, maybe, but mostly I'm all right. I got through it, and I remembered some stuff." "Will you tell me?"

It was foolish to deny, to either of them, that she was here as much for personal reasons as professional ones. "I remembered what it felt like to kill him. I remembered that rush of primal hate and rage.

I know that's in me, and I know I can control it. I know that killing him, for me, at that moment, was the only way to survive. I can live with that."

She got to her feet. "And if you're thinking you need to put me through Testing to be sure I'm solid, I won't agree to it. I won't do it."

Mira kept her hands folded in her lap, kept her body very still. "Do you think I'd put you through that? Knowing you, understanding the circumstances, that I would use this confidence and play by the book? I thought you and I had come further than that."

She heard the hurt, and the disappointment, and had to turn away from it. "Maybe I'm shakier than I thought. I'm sorry." She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. "Goddamn it."

"Oh, Eve." Mira rose, but when she reached out, Eve stepped quickly aside.

"I just need to find some level ground. Focus on work, and put this...

He was training me," she blurted out. "Training me so he could sell me to other men." Slowly, she lowered her hands as she stared at Mira's face. "You knew."

"I suspected. It made a terrible kind of sense. He could have moved quicker, easier, cheaper without you. You served no real purpose for him. From what I know, what you've been able to tell me, he wasn't a standard pedophile. He had relationships with women as a rule.

You were the only child he abused that we're aware of. And if children were what he wanted, he could have availed himself of them without the inconvenience of having one underfoot otherwise."

"He kept me locked up. That's how you train something-brainwash it.

You keep it locked up, totally dependent on you. You convince it that it has no choice but to stay because whatever's out there is worse.

You keep it hungry, uncomfortable, and afraid, mix that with small rewards. Punish harshly and swiftly for any infractions, and accustom it to whatever task it's meant to do. Bind it to you with fear, and it's yours."

"You were never his. With all that he did, for all those years, he never really reached you."

"He's never let go either," Eve said. "I have to live with that, too. So does Roarke. This messed him up, maybe more than it did me. We're okay, but... hell, it screws up your head."

"Would you like me to talk to him?"

"Yeah." The tension spiking into the base of her skull eased. "Yeah, that'd be good."