Hunt shrugged. "Hard to say." He gave them both a pretty much word-by-word account of everyone's reactions to Neshek's murder-Turner, Hess, Carter, Jaime and Lola Sanchez, it didn't take long-and then took a deep breath and came out with what he'd been avoiding. "But aside from them, there actually have been a few new developments."

"Which you're not going to like too much," Tamara added.

"What?"

Hunt filled him in on the latest news about Alicia, and Mickey brought up the same objections that Tamara had earlier.

"Well, I know how both of you feel," Hunt replied. "But I'd have to say at this point that Devin and Sarah consider her the prime suspect. And you both ought to know that. We'd be smart to think of her the same way. At least until we get something that positively clears her." Hunt's eyes went from Mickey around to his sister. "You think we can do that?"

"We can try," Tamara said at last, folding under the pressure of Hunt's gaze.

Hunt turned back around and leaned in toward the bed. "How 'bout you, Mick? Mick?"

But Mickey's eyes were closed, his breathing regular. For all the world as though the pain drugs had kicked in again and he had faded off to sleep.

At a few minutes after six, Tamara said good- bye to Hunt, got out of the car he'd driven her home in, opened her building's front door, checked her mail-mostly throwaway stuff except for the PG & E bill and the latest Gourmet-and climbed the stairs up to her apartment. Letting herself in with her key, she sang out a greeting, but not too loud, as her grandfather was known to take the occasional nap. "Hey, Jim. I'm home."

When he didn't respond, she walked over a few steps. His bedroom door was ajar. She pushed it open enough to see inside. His bed was still made and he wasn't in it. Well, he was probably hanging out with his friends, she thought. Usually he made it a point to get home by dinnertime, which tended to be around seven. She didn't give his absence a lot of thought.

She dropped the mail onto its spot at the top of the living room bookshelf, then turned and hung up her coat in the closet by the front door. On her way into the kitchen to check the refrigerator for something to drink, she pa.s.sed the phone, saw the number "1" flashing, and pushed the b.u.t.ton for playback.

"Hi. This is Alicia Thorpe and I'm trying to get ahold of Mickey. Mickey, your cell phone's not picking up. I think it must be not turned on or something, so I'm trying the other number you gave me. Could you give me a call as soon as you get this? Or Jim or Tamara, maybe you could get in touch with him and have him call me. I really need to see Mickey as soon as I can. The police came by again today and . . . well, I can tell Mickey all this when he calls." She left her number and continued. "I should be able to answer all day. I called in sick at work, so really, anytime. But sooner would be better. Thanks. Talk to you soon, I hope."

Tamara, her face now clouded over by concern and indecision, stood by the phone and pushed the b.u.t.ton to hear the message again. This wasn't any social call. Clearly, Alicia understood that her situation had changed. Her voice was charged not just with tension, but with an undertone of desperation.

Conflicted by the recent and unequivocal instructions from her boss, Tamara remained standing by the telephone for another minute or so. After that, she continued on into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, found some orange juice, and poured herself a gla.s.s. Bringing it with her, she went back to the living room and plopped herself down on the one stuffed chair they had by the back windows. She took a good drink and put the orange juice gla.s.s on the small table next to the chair. Then she came forward and clasped her hands.

She started to get up once, then-hamstrung by her indecisiveness-all but fell back into the chair. On her second try, she was more successful-she got all the way up and over to the telephone. It took her another minute before she played the message a third time. Then at last she picked up the receiver and punched in the numbers.

"Alicia, this is Tamara. . . . I got your message here at the apartment. . . . I have to tell you that Mr. Hunt doesn't really want us to talk to you, either me or Mickey. . . . I know. . . . I think I agree, but the bottom line is he's the boss . . . but you should at least know that Mickey was in a car accident today . . . no, he's okay, they think, I hope. They're holding him for observation overnight. . . ."

Tamara had been planning to come back down to visit Mickey again with her grandfather when Jim got home, but by eight-thirty, a very long two and a half hours later, he had not arrived back at the apartment. Frustrated now and starting to get worried, she tried to call Mickey at the hospital, but San Francisco General Hospital did not provide telephones for individual patients in their rooms. In fact, the afternoon call to the Hunt Club that had informed her of Mickey's condition had not come from Mickey directly, but from a nurse in the emergency room, who placed the call on her cell phone as a favor to her brother.

On her first try, she got cut off when she pressed pound according to the instructions. On her second, she punched seven different numbers in the automated menu over a five-minute period. Each option provided a suitable wait before suggesting the next one. (The hospital, by the way, had chosen the mellifluous and relaxing tones of Eminem as background while you waited.) When she finally reached a human being at the nurse's station on Mickey's floor, she could tell immediately from the woman's sublimely indifferent bureaucrat's tone that it was going to be a trying few more minutes.

"I'm sorry," the woman said. "We don't deliver messages from the nurse's station. You can come and visit the patient and deliver your message in person until ten o'clock."

"How about if the message, though, is that I can't get down to visit him?"

"Well, then, there's a message center option in the menu that you can access by simply hitting the pound key."

"I tried that before and it didn't work. This time it's taken me about half an hour to get to talk to you." This was an exaggeration, of course, but it was what it felt like. "Aren't you near to his room? Mickey Dade. Number three twenty-seven. Couldn't you just go and tell him his sister can't make it down tonight and will pick him up in the morning?"

"I'm sorry. I can't leave the nursing station unmanned."

"Look." Trying to sound reasonable. "Aren't you only like twenty or thirty feet from his room? Can't you just walk across-?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to leave the nurse's station. You can just press pound and leave a message. I'm sure he'll get it."

"I pressed pound the last time and it got me disconnected."

"That's not really very likely. If you'll hold, I can just transfer you myself."

With great reluctance, Tamara found herself saying, "All right. We can try that. Thank you."

A click, then an ominous emptiness sounded at her ear for about five seconds before Tamara heard a chirpy three-toned, high-pitched ring, and then a metallic, disembodied voice: "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and-"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" She slammed the phone back onto the receiver. Swearing a blue streak, she walked into the kitchen, made an about-face, came back to the telephone, picked it up about a foot, and slammed it down again. Then she turned and stared at the door to her apartment.

"And while we're at it," she said aloud to no one, "where the f.u.c.k are you, Jim?"

25.

The drugs were beginning to wear off, but when Mickey opened his eyes, for a minute he thought he might be hallucinating. "Alicia? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at work?"

"Your sister told me what happened." She sat in a chair near the head of his bed. Beyond her, he caught a glimpse of the wall clock-eight forty-five. "You look really beat up."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"Are you okay?"

"They say I'm going to live. But she really nailed me. The other driver, I mean." He closed his eyes briefly, opened them again. Yep, Alicia was still there. "You didn't have to come down here," he said. "I'm glad you did, but-"

"I had to see you," she said.

"Well, you came to the right place. I don't seem to be going anywhere soon."

"I have to talk to you. Can we do that?"

He abandoned the flippancy. "Of course. Why wouldn't I talk to you?"

"Because your boss told you not to?"

Mickey went to shake his head, but with the pain didn't get far. "He didn't exactly tell me not to. He just said it would be dumb."

"Why? Does he say I killed Dominic too?"

"He says he's keeping an open mind. But he does believe the cops are thinking that way. So Tam and I ought to watch out too."

"Mickey." She reached out and rested her hand on his arm. "I swear to you. I didn't have anything to do with that. Or with Nancy Neshek either. I promise."

"All right."

"Please tell me you believe me."

Mickey drew in a breath. Here, indeed, was the crux. He didn't need to consciously recall the many discussions he'd had with Tamara in the wake of the boyfriend who'd betrayed her and Wyatt Hunt and everyone else he'd known. Those conversations were by now part of his DNA. Even Mickey had considered Craig a good guy, possibly a future brother-in-law, and a fine choice at that.

And now here Mickey was, in an a.n.a.logous situation with a woman for whom he had an attraction that was-no other word for it-dangerous. And still, knowing everything he did, he was thinking about committing in the same way his sister had committed.

More than thinking about it.

Almost without conscious volition, he found himself answering her. "I do believe you," he said. "You didn't kill anybody."

At his words, her eyes teared up and she put her head down, resting it against the side of the bed. Her shoulders rose and fell a couple of times before she looked up at him again. "How can I ever thank you?"

"Don't worry about that. The big question is what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. I don't have any idea. That's why I came here. To ask you. I think they're going to arrest me. I can't let myself get arrested, Mickey. I really can't."

"You think they're that close?"

She nodded. "I don't know what they need, but they asked me if I had any plans to travel outside the Bay Area anytime soon. If you want my opinion, I think I'm their main suspect." She moved her chair closer in to the bed, and now spoke in a near whisper. "I didn't go in to work today. I didn't want them to know where to find me."

"You think they'd arrest you down there? At Morton's?"

"Why not? That's where they questioned me the first time."

Mickey hesitated, following the inexorable logic of what must have been true. "So you're out of your room too?" he asked.

She didn't seem surprised at the question. "I grabbed some stuff as soon as they left and threw it in my car."

"So where are you going to go from here?"

"Mickey"-she hesitated-"I don't have anyplace to go. My brother's the only family I've got, and I know they'd look for me at his place. I'd just been sitting out by the beach until I heard from Tamara. Then finally I decided I needed to come in here. To ask you to help me."

In spite of himself, Mickey's chest heaved as a bitter laugh began, then stopped with the clutch of his broken ribs. Wincing, he moved his right hand over to cover them.

"Mickey?"

"I'm okay, I'm okay." He puffed out a quick breath, then another. "Just enjoying the humor in you thinking I could help you. Especially how I am right now."

"But I know you can."

He closed his eyes and took a beat to think. She wanted him to help her, was begging him to help her. She was not who they thought she was, and he might be her only hope left. Opening his eyes, he met her gaze. "Look, Alicia," he said. "This is a little town. How long do you think you can hide from them if they really want to find you? A couple of days? A week? A month? And do you really think that doing that will make it better for you when they do find you? Even if you could avoid them for a little while, you'd just be making it worse."

"I don't care if it's days or a week, Mickey. I need some time. And they need some time to look at other suspects."

"So you were parked all day out at the beach?"

"Right."

"You don't think they've got the plates on your car?"

"I don't know." Then, realizing the obvious, "They would, wouldn't they?"

"You can bet on it. You might as well have gone in to work. You're in that car, they got you."

"I didn't think of that."

"Have you used your cell phone?"

"Sure. To call work and say I was sick. Then your house, and then when Tamara called me back. And then Ian, just to let him know where I was."

Slowly, now, slowly, against the pain, Mickey shook his head. "You can't use your cell phone, Alicia. They can locate you by that."

"They can?"

A small smile. "It's a rough environment for fugitives out there."

"But I'm not a fugitive. I'm not under arrest. Not yet, anyway." She brought her hands up to her forehead, rubbed it, brought her hands back down. "They're just not looking in the right places, Mickey. They can't be. They've got to be missing something. This was what we talked about when we first got together, you remember? You were going to investigate the murder, now murders, and not let them land, finally, on me. You remember that, don't you? That's what this was all about, right? Was I making all that up?"

The details still fresh in his mind, Mickey experienced again the rush of those moments when he'd determined that his plan could resuscitate the dying Hunt Club while at the same time give him an opportunity to get to know this woman. This remarkable woman. This woman with whom he could see himself.

Well, he'd done the Hunt Club part. It had its new clients and its reward billings. His efforts had, at least for the time being, even brought his sister back from the edge of anorexia, returned to her some of her sense of self-worth. All that was left was in some respects, the personal respects, the most important part.

And now the person at the center of that was asking him if she was making all that up? Everything he'd promised her, had she just imagined that? Was it all merely a game for Mickey to toy with and then drop when it became inconvenient, difficult, even perilous? Was she, take away the self-serving rationalizations, just another pretty girl to him?

"Was I, Mickey?" she repeated. "Was I making all that up?"

He took his right hand off his ribs and laid it gently on her shoulder. "No," he told her. "That's still what this is about."

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you." She put her hand over his, then leaned over and kissed it. "So what are we going to do?"

Mickey, with some difficulty, pushed himself up on the bed. "First," he said, "we'd better find where they hid my clothes."

The clothes and valuables were hung in a plastic bag in the closet. Mickey's bed was one in a three-bed room, but the one closest to the door. The other patients in the room had screens pulled around those beds, and the one in the middle had three visitors, chatting away. After she brought over the bag of Mickey's clothes, Alicia went to the hallway door and stood in it, just inside the room.

Even moving slowly and with great care, it didn't take Mickey more than two minutes to get on his underwear and pants. He couldn't get his shirt over the cast, but thank G.o.d it had been a cold day and he had his jacket, which served. He called Alicia back to him and she helped him with his shoes, left untied. His socks were just too much trouble to even bother with. They went into his jacket pocket along with the shirt.

She took his good right arm and together they strolled out into the hallway.

The walk out of the hospital was challenging. Dizziness made him come to a dead stop three times. Beyond that, even though it was his left arm that was broken, his left leg had evidently gotten banged up badly as well. Both his hip and his knee throbbed with every step and his ribs were worse-constant pinching pain that kept him from standing straight. Once they cleared the building itself, just walking unimpeded out the front entrance, they hit the drizzle and the biting wind. Alicia was wearing her jeans and hiking boots and a water-resistant ski jacket over a pullover sweater, and she pulled her left arm out of the sleeve and wrapped the jacket over Mickey's shoulders, holding his right arm, pressing up tight against him.

Nevertheless, by the time they made it out to Alicia's car at the very far end of the darkened parking lot, Mickey was shivering, his teeth actually chattering, a general pain now diffused by the shaking throughout his body. Alicia opened the front pa.s.senger side door and got him into the seat, then spun out of her heavy jacket and draped it over him, tucking it in around him. She ran around the car, got in, turned on the ignition, and set the heater to max.

"It'll warm up in a minute," she said. "Then we'll jam the fan."

Still shivering, his teeth audible in the close s.p.a.ce, huddled down inside the blanket, Mickey could barely get out one word. "Good."

Alicia revved the engine to speed the heating process, but kept her lights and the windshield wipers off. They were coc.o.o.ned, the drizzle on the car's windows preventing them from seeing much outside. In less than a minute, she reached down and turned the fan onto high, and feeling the vent, she nodded. "Better than outside already."