Claudia nodded philosophically. "This particular man went in that brown building two doors down about twenty minutes ago. I was going to follow him, but ... it didn't seem like a good idea." A single glance inside had persuaded her of that. She had no idea which floor he was on, much less which room, and the hallway was not a good place to wait. It was dark, dirty and stank of things she preferred not to think about. Bad as the street was, it was an improvement over waiting for Ethan inside that building.

At first she'd waited by his car, but not for long. Two men had started across the street toward her. She'd glanced at her watch, tapped her foot, then set off down the street as if she were late for an appointment.

She'd been walking up and down the block ever since.

A car honked as it approached the corner. Claudia's temporary companion thrust out a hip and drew one hand up her body provocatively. The driver looked, but his gaze flicked to Claudia. He shook his head and drove on.

"Look, you're cuttin' into my trade," the woman said impatiently. "Go be nervous someplace else."

"Why did he look at me and change his mind?" Claudia said, vaguely offended. She glanced down at her charcoal-gray slacks, which she'd worn with a red sweater that didn't show beneath her electric-blue leather coat. "I suppose I'm dressed wrong."

The woman made that rusty noise again. "Honey, you are all wrong. He probably thought you were a cop."

"A cop?" She grinned, tickled by the idea. "That's never happened before."

"Now, me, I think you look more like one o' those rich-b.i.t.c.h do-gooders that runs that place over on Meadow."

"Is that bad?"

She shrugged. "S'pose someone needs to see to those poor cows that lets their men beat on 'em. What you ought to do," she said, fixing Claudia with a firm frown, "is get 'em to a gym, get 'em strong enough to hit back. I don't have no trouble with my man messin' with me that way."

"I'll bet you don't." Claudia gave a judicious nod. "But a lot of those women are beat up on the inside, too. Even if they were strong enough physically to fight back, they don't have any fight up here like you do." Claudia tapped the side of her head. "You can tell people something all day, but until they have it inside them, it doesn't do any good."

"Guess you really ain't as dumb as you look," the other woman said grudgingly. Then some radar had her head swiveling. Another car was slowing. She strutted up to the curb, tossed back her coat and did that hip-jut thing again, running her hand up her body.

Claudia thought of what she'd just said. She could talk all day about self-respect and the price this woman paid for using her body as merchandise. She could talk about options and programs that might help her retrain for another profession. And none of it would mean a thing, not unless there was a voice inside the woman whispering some of the same things. No one could afford to hope until they believed change was possible.

This time the car pulled up to the curb. The pa.s.senger window slid down and the woman bent over to speak through it, tossing back that long, curly hair. She laughed low in her throat. It sounded nothing like the rusty chuckle Claudia had heard earlier.

The driver reached across the seat and opened the door. The woman started to get in-and paused, glancing over her shoulder. "You stay away from that Hector. He gets high, he gets stupid. And mean. Likes to cut on women."

"Wait," Claudia said, moving forward. "Who's Hector?"

"And don' be standing on my spot. My man come around, he ain't gonna like it. He got a strong sense of territory." She slammed the door.

"But which one is..."

The car pulled away.

"Hector," Claudia finished in a whisper.

A drop of water plunked on her cheek. Another struck the back of her hand. She looked up. "Oh, h.e.l.l." Rain. That was all she needed.

Time to get out of here. No cabs were going to come cruising by, so that meant hoofing it. The shelter was six blocks to the west ... she thought. Claudia tapped her toe and tried to remember the route the cab had taken. They'd pa.s.sed a fast-food place a few blocks back, but how many? Three, she thought. That would make it closer than the shelter.

Two more drops. .h.i.t her head. Big, fat, cold raindrops.

She started walking quickly back down the street. Maybe the hecklers in the doorway would go inside. Surely even rough, tough gang members didn't stand around in the rain when they could go inside and be dry. It had smelled awful inside the building that had swallowed Ethan, though. A little rain might not seem so bad compared to breathing that muck.

Apparently it didn't. The three loungers didn't go inside. No, they'd been joined by a fourth.

Ethan's building was just ahead. Should she go in it? Cross the street? She simply could not make herself believe she'd be safer inside that building. They could corner her in there.

Cross the street, then. Claudia turned sharply and edged between two parked cars. More drops fell. It wasn't quite raining yet, but it was working its way up to it.

She didn't see anyone on the other side of the street. Yes, this was better. She'd just wait for the next two cars to go by and-

Three young men flowed into her path, coming from both sides. Two were black, one white, but otherwise they looked identical in their baggy pants and tight T-s.h.i.+rts and red-and-black jackets. The one in the middle smiled. His teeth were large and crooked. "Hey, babe. Goin' somewhere?"

She backed up carefully and pulled the pepper spray from her purse.

Two big hands closed around her arms from behind. "Gotcha," a fourth man said cheerfully from far too close. He giggled when she tried to jerk away, and pulled her backward.

Off balance, she fell up against him. He smelled sour and she couldn't aim her pepper spray. "Let go of me."

"Hey, that's not friendly. You don' want us to think you ain't friendly."

"Why would I care?" She tried again to pull free. His fingers dug in harder. It hurt. "Let go, dammit."

He gave her a little shake. "Hector, she don't care."

The others had formed up around them. One of them shook his head. "Hector gets his feelings hurt when people aren't friendly."

"You don't wanna hurt Hector's feelings, do you?"

That brought a round of snickers.

"Hey, what's that you got, sugar?"

One of them laughed. "In her hand, jerk-face," the first one said amiably. "I know what she's got between her legs." He s.n.a.t.c.hed the pepper spray away from her. "Why, that is real unfriendly."

Claudia had always thought that the saying about your heart leaping into your throat was just an expression. But there hers was, nearly choking her while it pounded away in the wrong spot.

"You boys are scarin' the poor thing," the one in the middle said. He was nineteen or twenty years old and as pale as Claudia. His long, stringy hair was the color of used dishwater. His eyes looked funny-the pupils weren't right. "See, we just wanted to ask you somethin', sugar. We been havin' a discussion. Jarmon here says the only reason a rich white b.i.t.c.h like you visits our turf is to get herself some dark meat. Now, me, I say maybe you want some, maybe you don't. But Jarmon, he do have a point. Why else you be here?"

They were grinning, happy with a chance to ease their boredom. The rain had worked its way up to a heavy drizzle. It didn't seem to bother them.

She swallowed, trying to make her heart go back down where it belonged. "Are-are you Hector?" Oh, she didn't like the way her voice shook. Or the way the dirty person behind her was rubbing one hand up and down her arm.

"You know me?" He made an astonished face. "Hey, boys, she knows me! Maybe I'm famous, huh?" He moved closer, smiling widely. "Maybe you came here to see me, huh?"

"I never date men who pull the wings off flies for fun."

That brought a round of laughter and some comments about the sort of things Hector did for entertainment. She s.h.i.+vered and told herself it was the cold water falling on her bare head that caused it. The fat drops were falling faster.

"Hey, Felipe, you bein' greedy. We need to let the lady choose."

"Yeah, that's only polite. Let her pick."