"Between Gerald and his demons. Between me and mine." He stroked my knuckles and gazed deeply into my eyes. A little shiver skittered along my veins. It traveled up my arm, zipped past my elbow, and shimmied across my nipples like a cool bolt of lightning.

I stood in frozen horror. "Well..." The word was breathless, stupid, stunned. I couldn"t be attracted to this man. Absolutely could not, but the shiver was scattering downward. "I should be going."

"So soon?" he asked, and stroked my fingers.

"Yes," I croaked, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing my hand from his, sprinted out of the house, slamming the door behind me.

It"s entirely possible that I have demons of my own. I rushed home to discuss the continuing confrontation between intellect and instinct with Francois.

21.

Don"t worry. It"s scientifically unlikely that the universe will explode into a million particles at any given moment.

-J. D. Solberg,

who has, oddly enough,

studied these things

HE DRIVE HOME was uneventful-except for what was going on in my head. It was racing like a rabbit-happy greyhound.

So there had been problems among Riveras staff. That was hardly surprising. Especially since the problems seemed fairly insignificant. A spat regarding the Sabbath, a minor affair that no one knew about.

But maybe Rivera was understating everything. It would be interesting to get another perspective. But whose? His acquaintances seemed to be mostly dead.

I would look into Cynthia Larson"s whereabouts, but I had little hope of actually finding her. She had probably been married four times and undergone two s.e.x changes by now.

But perhaps Mr. Altove was a possibility.

I parked my Saturn in its usual spot by the curb but didn"t exit immediately. Instead, I took the Mace out of my purse, laced my fingers between my keys, and said a prayer to good old Dymphna, patron saint of hapless morons. I then glanced up and down the street. Sometimes I"m not notably bright, but given enough attempts on my life, I can learn. Unlocking the car doors finally, I stepped out and hurried toward my house.

The single bulb was burning dutifully above my front door. After scanning the darkened yard like an osprey I shoved my key into my lock. It turned easily. I stepped inside, and that"s when I knew...

Someone was inside my house. I could feel it tingling in the soles of my feet, rasping in the very air I breathed, lifting the hairs at the back of my neck. Nothing was out of place. The door had been locked, my security light was blinking properly from its place on the hall wall, but there was something wrong.

The memory of a man"s dead, staring eyes burned into my mind. He"d died in my front yard, blood seeping into the dirt. Maniacal laughter whispered through my mind. My joints felt wooden. My scalp p.r.i.c.kled. I backed toward the door, heart thumping, lungs laboring.

A shadow loomed suddenly from the kitchen.

I jerked my Mace shoulder high and shrieked. "Stay back. I"ve got a gun."

The silence reverberated, then: "Mac?" Laney said.

It took a couple of lumbering attempts for my mind to register that it was really her, but she was shaking her head and looking concerned about my sanity, so it probably was. Harlequin loped in. He looked loopy and ecstatic. Next to Lucky Duck and Rivera, Laney was his favorite plaything.

"Are you taking your lion"s mane like you promised?"

All the blood had rushed to my toes. I dropped the Mace to my side.

"Lion"s mane?" My voice sounded pale and watery.

"Mushrooms," she said. "To ward off dementia."

"Mushrooms?" My arms felt limp. "Holy c.r.a.p, Laney, I could have killed you."

She flipped the foyer light on, set her gla.s.s of whatever juice on the little table by my door, and examined the Mace. "You don"t even have the trigger on."

I felt wobbly and a little nauseous. "What are you doing here?"

"You didn"t get my message?"

I shook my head, weak and disoriented. "Did the message say anything about you scaring the c.r.a.p out of me?"

"I may have neglected that part."

I wobbled into the kitchen and plopped into the nearest chair. "At least you could have turned on a light."

"Environmental responsibility. You don"t even have fluorescent bulbs," she said, and, arming my security system, took the chair beside mine. "I"m sorry, Mac. They say a good fright"s good for your system, though. Like low-voltage electrical shock."

"I thought you weren"t coming "til tomorrow."

She shrugged. "I wanted to make sure I made good on my vow."

I managed to tilt my head.

"To arrive before the next attempt on your life."

Feeling was beginning to return to my fingertips. "Everything okay between you and ..." Sometimes if I say Solberg"s name out loud, I get a little sick to my stomach. If I think of him with Brainy Laney b.u.t.terfield, I have to take a Dramamine.

"Jeen," she supplied.

"Yeah, him." I rubbed Harley"s ears. He grinned like a drunken freshman. I"ve never particularly liked drunken freshmen, even when I was one.

"Everything"s fine." Picking up her tie-dyed, organic, llama-friendly bag made by Bolivian indigents, she pulled out a lemon. A heart had been carved into the rind. "He gave me this."

I blinked. "Because he"s a certified nut-job?"

"Because I"m three hundred sixty-five times sweeter than sugar and can balance the acidity."

I nodded. "I feel a little like I"m going to hurl. Do you happen to have an antacid or possibly the root of a something-berry in there?"

She laughed and dropped the lemon back into her bag. "How did it go with the senator?"

I shook my head and found my feet, or perhaps the other way around. Going to the fridge, I opened it up and peered inside. A tumbleweed blew by. I closed it.

"His water is fizzy," I said.

There was a moment of silence, then, "Have you been drinking?"

"The most enlightening part of the evening," I said, "is that water can fizz."

"I take it you didn"t learn much."

"Well..." I sat down again, stretched out my legs. Harlequin had abandoned me for Laney. I couldn"t blame him. If I could do the same, I would. "I mean, it"s not as if I"m taking this very seriously or anything. Just looking into a few things as a favor."

"So you didn"t cash his check."

I hesitated, searching for a likely lie, but the truth burst on me like the crack of dawn. I glanced up, suspicious. "You know I cashed his check, don"t you?"

She didn"t answer directly. "I saw the tagboard on your office wall."

"I was bored," I said.

She shook her head. "Why can"t you just play Scrabble like other s.e.xually frustrated geniuses with Ph.D.s?"

"I beat Harley three out of four games," I said. "He didn"t want to play anymore."

"I was thinking you might try it with someone from genus h.o.m.o sapiens."

"I don"t know anybody."

"Is the good lieutenant giving you that much trouble?"

"The good lieutenant, as you very well know, is trouble."

She smiled. "Otherwise you would have been bored a long time ago."

I shrugged.

She watched me, eyes narrowed a little. "How"s the other guy?"

"I know a lot of other guys. Most of them are certifiable."

"You want normal, try Iowa. What"s his name?"

"There is no one," I said.

"Strange name. What does he do?"

I gave her a look. "He"s a cop."

"The guy who asked about casual s.e.x?"

I cleared my throat. "Maybe."

She sighed. "You seemed so intelligent in fifth grade," she said.

I refrained from sticking out my tongue.

"Why policemen?" she asked.

"There are only so many geek G.o.ds." I remained mute on the thank heaven part, but she laughed and the world seemed brighter.

"You all right, Mac? Really?"

"I"m fine. How about you?"

"The schedules crazy and I miss you something terrible," she said, and suddenly I felt a little weepy. "Are you sure you"re okay?"

"Just tired."

"You"re going to cry, aren"t you?"

"Oh, please," I said, and she laughed again.

"Put on your jammies. I"m staying the night."

"I"m not that easy."

"Yes, you are," she said, and the world felt right.

We slept in the same bed, like little kids hiding from their parents, and talked about everything under the moon. I told her that Rivera wasn"t speaking to me, that Officer Tavis"s smile was too pretty for words, and that Mrs. Al-Sadr had cried about her sister with whom she wanted to share a mouthwatering ambrosia called halvah. I told her about my conversation in a bar called Happy Daze. That I"d missed the fact that Kathy Baltimore was a lesbian even though I have a Ph.D. And that there had been nothing but a few seemingly insignificant problems within the senator"s campaign.

She told me that her props master was a lovely, soft-spoken gentleman from Saudi Arabia. That she worked fourteen-hour days and had received thirty-two letters from a single fan in one week.

I lay in the darkness listening to her talk and wondered with dusky surprise if I would trade places with her.

"If I ever get out of the entertainment business, I think I"d like to buy a farm," she said.

"A farm?"