"True." After a moment he asked, "Have you told Claudia any of this?"

"What do you think?"

"I think she'd tip her brother off, either on purpose or inadvertently. Which would compromise your investigation. Which I guess answers my question." He shook his head. "You really like her, don't you? Aside from wanting to get her in bed, I mean."

"Yeah." He did like Claudia. He liked being with her, waiting to see what goofy thing she pulled next, or watching her take dead aim at some obstacle and mow it down. He liked listening to her. Looking at her. G.o.d, he loved that. Those incredible legs ... but he also liked the way she held her head, erect on that slim little neck.

She did have a pretty neck. Graceful. She had a good walk for watching, too-brisk but sort of curvy, like a Slinky on fast forward. One of her eyeteeth was a little crooked, but it only showed when she opened that bee-stung mouth wide in a laugh. He liked the way she laughed.

He was in trouble. "h.e.l.l," he said, and glanced at his watch as he shoved to his feet. "I've got to get moving before she shows up. It's ten till nine , and the woman is obsessively punctual. I'd better use the back stairs to make sure I don't run into her."

"Where are you going, anyway?"

"Boots called." Ethan grabbed an ankle-length black trench coat from the coatrack and shrugged into it. "He says he has something for me."

"Oh, h.e.l.l, Ethan, he makes stuff up."

"Sometimes. I guess none of your stoolies do that." Ethan shook his head, amazed, and reached for the hat that went with this getup. "Wish I knew how to make them tell the truth all the time. They teach you how to do that at the academy?"

"Okay, okay. Just don't go see him alone. Wait till I get back and I'll go with you. Even cops cover that neighborhood in pairs."

"The trick is not to look like a cop." He settled the hat on his head and reached for the walking stick.

"You definitely don't look like a cop. More like a pimp. And not a very successful one."

"I have to blend in. I'm too big to go unnoticed."

"Just be careful, will you?"

"I'm always careful."

Claudia's heart pounded as she tiptoed back down the stairs, walking on the very edges to avoid creaks.

Imagine that. Ethan had planned to slip out without her. Naturally she had to know what he was trying to keep from her. Her lips curved as she reached the street. She'd watch his car, she decided. He always wanted to take his car-the man simply didn't believe in public transportation. Which meant she'd need a taxi. She looked around for one as she headed toward the store on the corner where Ethan always parked.

Why did everyone say eavesdroppers never heard anything good about themselves? Her smile widened, softened. Ethan liked her. That was what had stopped her right outside his office door, which had been ajar. Rick had been asking Ethan if he liked her.

He didn't just want to get her into bed. That was what Rick had said, and Ethan had agreed. He liked her.

Claudia was humming as she flagged down the taxi rounding the corner.

Seven.

A t least she wasn't lost, Claudia told herself as she stepped quickly along the broken sidewalk. She knew exactly where she was-walking up and down a single block in a section of the city that gave the word slum a bad name.

She wasn't alone on the street. The huddle of rags propped against one decaying building was really an old man. He smelled bad and he hadn't moved the entire time she'd been there, but she was fairly sure he was pa.s.sed out, not dead.

Cars cruised by now and then, stereos blaring, the ba.s.s notes thrumming up through the soles of her feet. Across the street two older women walked quickly, their heads down.

And right in front of her three young men in "gangsta" pants and red-and-black jackets lounged in a wide doorway, pa.s.sing around a funny-smelling cigarette. She hoped it was plain gra.s.s, not laced with PCP or something. One made her an extremely lewd offer as she hurried past. Another giggled. The third asked if she was deaf or something-didn't she hear them talking to her?

She walked faster.

Things could have been worse. It might have been dark, for example. No, even she wasn't idiot enough to have gotten out of the cab here at night. The cab probably wouldn't have even come here at night-he hadn't been too happy about bringing a fare here in the daytime. Claudia kept one hand inside her purse on her can of pepper spray.

If only that stupid cabdriver had agreed to stay!

She had never intended to leave the taxi without Ethan's large, comforting presence close at hand. She'd heard what Rick had said about the area, and a neighborhood where the police patrolled in pairs was not the spot for a woman alone to go strolling. She'd planned to follow Ethan to his destination, then get out when he parked his car. He would have been forced to take her with him.

Traffic, she mused, makes fools of us all.

Her cab had been slowed down by a creeping delivery van. She'd been stuck at a stop sign two blocks back when Ethan parked his big Buick. Which, she couldn't help noticing, blended in just fine here. She'd seen which building he went into.

This one. The three-story apartment building with unimaginative graffiti sprayed on one side of the door to welcome visitors. Some of the windows were boarded up.

She walked past it for the fourth time.

Exactly why she'd gotten out of the cab when the cabbie refused to circle the block, she couldn't say. It had seemed reasonable at the time. She'd been here before without being bothered. Well, not exactly here. She'd helped establish a shelter for battered women in this area, and visited it occasionally to make sure things were running well. But it was six blocks away.

Six blocks made a difference. And she hadn't gone there alone.

She'd reached the corner again. The woman standing there gave her a hostile glare. She was an Amazon, six feet tall and stacked. Her hair was long and curly and unnaturally red, and her skimpy top revealed excellent muscle definition in her abs. She did have a coat-red leather, and rather similar to Claudia's, though Claudia's was an electric blue. But it hung open. Her fingernails were the color of dried blood and were long enough to have been registered as weapons.

Claudia thought she must be cold. "h.e.l.lo," she said brightly. "Chilly out, isn't it? At least the wind isn't blowing."

The woman expressed a desire for Claudia to leave. She used very direct language. Claudia's grandmother would have washed her mouth out with soap.

"Look," Claudia said, "I'm not trying to make trouble. I'm just nervous. Those guys in the middle of the block are giving me a hard time."

She snorted. "Maybe you're not so dumb as you look."

"Probably not." Claudia kept smiling. "I like your boots."

The woman's gaze flickered down to her cowboy boots. They were red and purple. She looked up again, suspicious. "Somethin' tells me they ain't your usual style."

"Well," Claudia said judiciously, "the skirt wouldn't work for me." Purple leather ending a finger's width below the crotch-no, Claudia couldn't quite picture herself in that. "But I could go for a pair of boots like that, especially if they came in a blue that went with my coat. Did you buy them someplace I'd be scared to go?"

The woman made a rusty sound. After a second Claudia realized it was a chuckle. "Probably. Look, chickie, what you doin' here, anyway? You ain't lookin' for business."

"I'm waiting for a man."

She sighed. "Ain't we all."