"I mean," he said, "how do we know there haven"t been more?"

"I checked into it," I said.

"How?"

"On the Internet."

"No offense, babekins, but if technology and you were in the sack together, you wouldn"t need no prophylactics."

Laney was looking at him with her ever-clear eyes.

"I"ll look into it, angel," he said, and she gave him the whisper of a smile.

His subsequent dowder-headed expression creeped me out a little. "Well," I said, having recovered enough to be cruel, "looks like it"s time for me to go home, since I don"t like to hurl in public."

We said our good-byes. Archer walked me to my car. I turned when I got to my humble little Saturn.

"I"m sorry," I said, and fiddled with my car keys.

"For?"

I glanced up. There was humor and uncertainty in his voice.

"Well..." I cleared my throat. "For being an idiot, for one thing."

"I don"t think you"re an idiot." He tilted his head. "In love with another man..." He let the sentence hang there.

G.o.d save me from recurring themes. "It"s not love," I said.

"What is it?"

"I don"t think there"s a name for it that can be voiced in polite society." More key-fiddling. "The kiss ..." I said.

"What about it?"

"I"m sorry about it."

He glanced over my head. He was just tall enough to do so. "Wish I could be."

"What?"

"Kinda seems if I had a pebble"s worth of pride I"d be p.i.s.sed, huh?"

"Aren"t you?"

"It"s not every day I get to kiss a woman like you, Christina."

The sentence was said with sincerity and feeling. If compliments were meals, it would have been prime rib. "It was a good kiss," I said.

"I put everything I had into it. Another couple seconds I would have needed a defibrillator."

Despite everything-world hunger, the bubonic plague... Rivera-I couldn"t help but laugh. "You"re okay, Archer."

He didn"t say anything. Doubts shouldered in.

"Aren"t you?"

"Nicer than him," he said, and nodded toward the interior of the restaurant, where Rivera sat with a girl younger than his dog.

"That"s not saying much," I said, and sighed.

"Then why are you-" he began, but I knew the question.

"Because I"m demented."

He paused a second, then nodded. "It"s an interesting family. I"ve always thought so."

I glanced up, curious, heart starting to pound a little. "What do you mean, you"ve always thought so?"

"Dad was a big supporter."

"Of the senator"s?" Paranoia bellied up to the doubt, shoving it rudely aside.

"Yeah."

I felt tense and stupid to be so. "Is that why you"re here?"

"What?"

"To protect the senator?"

"I-"

"Did you have Manny killed?"

"What?" He actually stumbled back a step.

"Was he going to cause trouble for the senator?"

"What are you talking about? Manny was a drunk. As far as I know, he pa.s.sed out cold and fell headfirst into the river."

"Do you think I"m planning to cause trouble for him?" I was rambling. I know I was rambling. Maybe I even knew then, but I couldn"t stop myself. ""Cuz I"m not. I didn"t want anything to do with another Rivera. He came to me. Asked me to look into the deaths. Ask him yourself."

"Listen, honey, you should forget about all this."

I narrowed my eyes at him, thinking. Manny had started a lawsuit against Ironwear. Essentially, Archer was Ironwear. Maybe that"s why Emanuel was now in the morgue. Or maybe it was even more twisted than that. Maybe Archer was behind all of it. All the deaths. Maybe he had an unrevealed past with the senator. Maybe the old man had slighted him, or run over his cat, or, more likely, slept with his girlfriend. "What was your last girlfriend"s name?" I asked.

"Debra. Why?"

"How long did you date Cynthia?"

He stared at me. "I don"t know what you"re thinking," he said. "But I swear I"ve never dated a Cynthia."

"How about a Cyndy?"

"No."

"Cyndra?"

"Hey," he stopped me, expression concerned. "I don"t even vote."

"What?"

"I wouldn"t know a Republican from a Hoosier."

"You"re not planning to kill me to protect his reputation?"

"Geez, Chrissy!" he said, and, despite the fact that I insisted on speaking, took my hand in his. "What has the world been doing to you?"

I swallowed. The feel of his skin against mine was kind of soothing. "It hasn"t all been great," I admitted.

He sighed. "You"re not going to drop it, are you?"

"I need the money," I said.

He canted his head.

"The senator paid me," I said. "To figure out if the deaths were accidents."

"That seems like a pretty strong case for his innocence."

I shrugged. "People are ... complex." I was going to say something less positive, but Archer was a nice guy. Maybe.

"I could check things out," he said. "See what the senator"s been up to. My dad"s..." He shrugged. "He"s smart, but he"s not...well, he"s not real nice, still I could ask what he knows about the Riveras."

"What do you mean, not nice?"

"I"m the prince of understatement."

"You think your father might have some dirt on the senator?"

He nodded, and then, leaning close, he kissed me. It was nice, gentle but evocative. "You"re as crazy as an avocado, but I kind of like you," he said, and left.

I was halfway home before I remembered the prince-of-understatement statement.

25.

I don"t need no PMS. I can be a b.i.t.c.h under my own steam.

-Shirley Templeton,

G.o.d love her

UNDAY Pa.s.sED IN A HAZE. I spent three hours with Laney shopping, laughing, and catching up on the minutiae of our lives.

Monday attacked me before I was ready. "I talked to the sister." Micky Goldenstone was back, but he wasn"t crying. Neither was he sitting. He was pacing, prowling around my office like a sleek black panther.

"Lavonn."

He nodded, but I wasn"t convinced he"d heard me. He may have simply been agreeing with some unheard dialogue that tolled in his head alone. He continued to pace.

"What did she say?"

He closed his eyes, and I wasn"t sure he would answer, but then he did. "Said she remembers me."

I braced myself. Mickys sessions were more like a highspeed roller coaster than therapy.

"She smiled," he said, and stared out the window. "Like I was her best friend in the world." He nodded. "Invited me in. Asked if I wanted a c.o.ke or something. Said she"d had a crush on me. That all the girls did."

I took a careful breath, not wanting to disturb him. Trying to wait. But it was no good. He was lost in the turmoil of his past. "So Kaneasha didn"t tell her about the incident."

I knew the instant the question left my mouth that I had chosen the wrong phrase. Micky wasn"t one to mince words. He was more apt to serve them whole and let you choke them down or puke them up. Didn"t matter to him.

"Incident?" he said.

I caught his gaze and squeezed it tight. Despite what I knew of this man, I liked him. I couldn"t help myself, and I didn"t want to lose any gram of respect I may have gained during the last few months of therapy. "The rape," I corrected.

He stared at me, then dropped onto the couch and closed his eyes. "She never told n.o.body. Kept it to herself. Kept it..." He turned toward me. Eyes burning with emotions I didn"t even really want to understand. "She"s dead."

It took a moment for his words to sink in. Longer still to figure out how to respond. "Oh, Micky. I"m so sorry."

"Died of an overdose."

"Did you speak to Jamel?"