"I think it has something to do with the woman who came to my office today," Katherine whispered after she'd turned her attention back to Vic.

"Lacey Harbison."

Vic nodded agreement.

"So, you're finally tying her into the melodrama."

To his surprise, Katherine flushed at this reminder of the statement she'd made in her office.

"Well," he continued, "I agree with you. I think she and whoever she's mixed up with are after Coyote and Sprite for some reason. We have to find out what that reason is."

Vic stepped forward, but Katherine took his arm. "What we have to do first is get some food into Sprite," Katherine said.

"She hasn't eaten since lunchtime at school. She needs nourishment."

Vic looked at the small, pale child in his living room and then back at Katherine, who was almost as thin.

"I'd guess you could use a good meal yourself."

Katherine shrugged.

"Maybe we could send out for pizza or Chinese food."

Vic raised his hand in protest.

"We don't do takeout in this house,"

he said.

He took Katherine by the arm before she could answer and led her back into the living room.

"Come with me, ladies," he said, extending his free. hand to Sprite.

"You have a very special treat in store."

Chapter Ten This had been a day of shocks and bewilderment for Katherine. She might have thought there was nothing left in the world to surprise her at the moment. At least, she might have considered herself way too exhausted by it all to master so much as a show of mild curiosity. Yet, when she burst through Vic Maltese's front door and then had a moment to calm down a bit, what she found there could hardly have been less expected.

She'd seen Vic's hot car and his wardrobe. She'd listened to his wisecracks and observed his edge of street savvy and impatience. None of that had prepared her for the hearth crackling in his living room or the Middle Eastern wool-weave carpets on polished fir flooring as warm in its l.u.s.ter as the milk-gla.s.s sconces on his walls. Cut-velvet drapes in pale olive were tied back by braided cords to reveal a veil of snow outside as it swirled in the illumination of the two carriage lamps on wrought-iron posts, one at each side of the half dozen steps leading up to Vic's door.

She hadn't really registered those lamps on her way up the steps except to say a quick prayer of thanks for the light that made his house number visible through the storm and darkness. She'd been in a state of barely controlled panic at the time, unable to shake the fear that whoever had invaded her apartment might have been lying in wait for her outside and could have followed her here. She'd had to force her foot to lighten on the gas pedal, no matter how much she wanted to propel her Cherokee across town like a rocket to what she hoped would be safe refuge with Vic. Even four-wheel drive might not have been equal to avoid ing a disastrous skid if she accelerated too fast in this weather.

So, she had endured the cautious but maddeningly slow journey from State Street to Livingston Avenue. About halfway between the two, it occurred to her that he might not be at home. Consequently, his carriage lamps had shone like rays of hope for her. Then she'd knocked on the doora"and knocked and knocked and knocked. She told herself he had to be inside, because she had no idea what to do if he wasn't. So she'd knocked until the door flew open at last.

Now here she was in the most unantic.i.p.ated circ.u.mstances she could imagine. Vic had sat her down in a cushioned spindle rocker with an afghan tucked under her chin. They were in his kitchen on the bas.e.m.e.nt level of his house. A green-painted cast-iron woodstove gave off a cozy heat. Vic had settled Sprite beneath a quilt among the pillows of a window seat with heavy hemp-cloth curtains drawn behind her to shut out even the hint of a draft. The child's eyelids were already almost closed despite her obvious struggles to keep them open. With a pang of too-sharp memory, Katherine could see Daniel doing the same thing, fighting against sleep for fear of missing so much as five minutes of whatever might happen next.

"Are you all right?" Vic asked.

He'd stopped stirring the pot on the restaurant-sized range.

"I'm fine," she said, but she could tell by the look on his face that he didn't believe her. She needed to throw him off this track before he asked her more questions she couldn't bear to answer right now.

"I'm just feel ing a little overwhelmed by..."

"By what."

There was his impatience again. She lifted her arm from the folds of the afghan and made a sweeping gesture to indicate the room.

"All of this," she said, amazed by how light her hand felt at the end of her arm, as if it might fly straight off if she were to swing it too hard.

Vic laughed and turned back to his stirring.

"What did you think? That I'd live in a flophouse?"

Katherine didn't answer. She couldn't tell him she'd been thinking something very much along those lines. "I didn't expect you to have a Christmas tree."

"Oh, that." He chuckled.

"I have an open house for the kids from the center a couple of days before Christmas. I put up the tree for that."

"You wouldn't do it otherwise?" Something in his tone made her ask that.

"Probably not."

"I see." This time something in his tone made her say no more, at least not on that subject.

"What are you cooking?"

"Sauce and pasta," he said and chuckled again.

"I know what a clich that is. The guy whose one dish is spaghetti."

"Some clichfis are nice."

Katherine heard the wooziness in her voice. She was beginning to feel like Sprite, as if she had to struggle to stay awake.

"For your information, I cook lots of things," Vic said.

Katherine managed a sleepy smile.

"For your information, I'll bet you do," she whispered before her voice trailed off.

The comfort of the rocker and the warmth of the wood-stove had already transported her too far down the road toward dreams for her to be surprised by much of anything any longer.

VIc CARRIED SPRITE upstairs first. He'd turned the burner off under the sauce pot and set the drained pasta aside before making the climb. He settled Sprite on the bed in the guest room on his second floor and covered her carefully. She hardly stirred through all of that, or when he tucked his long-saved teddy bear into the curve of her arm. He left the door ajar and a light on in the hallway outside the guest room. He was a veteran of enough haunted nights to be aware of the need to keep the darkness at bay.

He went back down the two flights of stairs at the rear of the house to the kitchen. What he saw there caused him to come to a dead stop, and not just because he didn't want to disturb Katherine's sleep.

Light from the fading flames of the woodstove threw shadows across her face, across the pale skin of her brow and the long lashes against her cheek. Her full lips were parted just slightly. The urge to kiss them thrilled through Vic like an earthquake tremoring straight to his loins. G.o.d, she was beautiful. And so still that, before he could think how nonsensical it was, he leaned closer to hear above the anxious beating of his own heart if she might have stopped breathing. He noticed the flush of her cheeks then, too high, too red even for her.

This had been the kind of overwrought day that might put anybody under the weather. Speaking of weather, she'd been out running around in a snowstorm, too. Working at a place like the center meant being exposed to the virus germs kids carry with them, especially during the winter, as readily as they carry a basketball. Being adolescents and resilient, they most likely wouldn't come down with anything more serious than a twenty-four-hour bug. An adult, on the other hand, could be more susceptible, particularly one who pushed herself as hard as Katherine did and looked so much like she needed a good, hearty meal.

He touched her forehead with the back of his hand. Her skin was moist and warm but not hot enough to be feverish. Vic sighed with relief.

He didn't want her to be sick. He was amazed at how strongly he didn't want anything bad, or even a little uncomfortable, to happen to her. He was resisting the temptation, which felt more like a deep need than an impulse, to caress her cheek, when her hand crept out from beneath the afghan and she clasped his wrist. The movement was unhurried and delicate, like the flicker of firelight on her cheek.

Still, he couldn't have been more startled if she'd struck him in the face.

Her lips moved. Vic couldn't understand her murmur. He leaned closer.

"What did you say?" he asked.

This time, when she spoke, he could make out the words but couldn't believe what he heard.

"Take me to bed," she whispered.

Her voice was dreamy, and her face remained soft with slumber. Her eyes didn't open, and her lips had barely moved. Surely she was talking in her sleep, maybe referring to an almost subconscious desire to rest somewhere more comfortable than a rocking chair.

Nonetheless, her words seared Vic's nerves all the way to the white-hot center of himself that had lain all but dormant for quite some time. In fact, at the moment, he wouldn't have been able to remember when he was last stirred so powerfully if his life depended on it. All he knew was that taking her to bed was exactly what he longed to do.

Vic bent down and slipped his arms beneath Katherine's body, one arm under the crook of her knees, the other across her back just below her shoulders. He lifted her out of the chair with the afghan still tucked around her. She was as light as he'd expected her to be. The scent of her hair and skin, heightened by the warmth of the fire, filled his head with such sweetness that for a moment he thought he would have to sit down himself until the intensity of that first wave of fragrance had pa.s.sed.

"Get a grip on yourself," Vic told himself forcefully. He stiffened his spine along with his resolve and concentrated on taking even, gradual steps toward the front of the house. With what was left of his sensible mind, he figured he'd carry Katherine up the front stairs. This way, he could avoid pa.s.sing Sprite's room and maybe waking her. He didn't like to think that he had ulterior motives for not want ing a conscious child in the vicinity. Still, he was a man, and the most male parts of him were very aware of that right now.

His bedroom was the only other one on this floor. Vic carried Katherine through the doorway he'd ripped off and replaced again with his own hands. This was his place, and he'd imagined more than once what it would be like to brin ga woman here who was equally his. That wasn't the case now, and he knew it. He had no claims on Katherine Fairchild. She was only here because she'd been scared out of her wits by what she found in her apartment.

The memory of that ruthless vandalism and the heartbreak over it he'd seen in Katherine's eyes brought Vic at least partway back to himself and what was really going on here tonight. He carded Katherine to the bed and put her down there gently, just as he'd done with Sprite in the room down the hall at the other side of the master bathroom. He pulled his arms free from beneath Katherine's body and straightened up to reach for the extra blanket folded across the foot of the bed. He draped the blanket over Katherine and was tucking the satin-trimmed edge under her chin when she took him by surprise yet again, as she'd done downstairs in the kitchen.

Now, her arms were suddenly around his neck, disengaged from the blanket and the afghan before his disbelieving mind could grasp what was happening. She pulled him toward her, and it never occurred to him to resist. She lifted her face toward his with her eyes still closed. Their mouths found each other instinctively, even in the dim light.

Her lips were soft and warm and still gently parted, as they had been in sleep downstairs by the stove. Was she sleeping now? Vic couldn't think clearly enough to figure that out, and he didn't really care.

He wrapped his arms around the bundle of her, blankets and all, and lowered himself over her. She clung to him, and they pressed as closely together as the layers of wool between them would allow.

He could taste her lips and feel them, full and willing, beneath his, but he hesitated. He didn't crush he: mouth as his most basic urges were commanding him to do. He didn't thrust his tongue between her lips though he ached to take possession of first her mouth then all of her. Something held him back, like a No Trespa.s.sing sign or an invisible bar at the door. Then, she parted her lips and tightened her arms around his neck.

Vic's senses received her message even before his mind could register its meaning. He groaned deep in his throat and let his tongue be welcomed by hers. They tasted each other and breathed each other in.

Her hunger was as great as his. He could feel it. He wanted to cry out with a bellow from the bottom of his lungs. Instead, he covered Katherine mouth ever more devouringly with his and marvelled at how she responded with an eagerness as primal as his own. She was definitely awake now.

Vic tore at the tangle of blanket and afghan between them. He felt her hand grappling as well, helping him clear away the barriers separating them from each other. The blanket fell to the floor, but the afghan was more difficult to unwind from her body. Still, he had just begun to allow himself the fantasy of her silken skin beneath his fingers when a scream split the night and sliced through their pa.s.sion with as brutal a cut as any cleaver could have made.

KATHERINE RUSHED down the hall behind Vic. The aura of what had just happened between them back there on the bed clung to her as tenaciously as the afghan, which had trailed with her all the way to the door till she kicked it aside before dashing into the hall. She pushed away the image of herself in Vic's arms as well. She'd have to deal with that later. Sprite was screaming. For the moment, nothing else could matter more than getting to her side. Katherine squeezed past Vic through the doorway at the end of the hall. The room was suddenly flooded with light. Vic had flipped the wall switch.

Sprite's scream rose to a thin, high shriek in response to the startling brightness. "Turn that off," Katherine snapped.

She'd have to apologize for her tone later on. The light dimmed again, but Sprite's screams didn't diminish either in pitch or intensity. Katherine had reached the bedside, but she didn't take hold of Sprite right away. Instead, she began making soft sounds of comfort and rea.s.surance.

"We're here, Sprite. Everything will be all right now." Katherine repeated variations on that theme in a cooing monotone she hoped wouldn't surprise or frighten the obviously terrified little girl.

She understood that the words were less important than the calming tone in which they were spoken.

She sat down slowly and carefully on the edge of the bed. Sprite was lying in a tumble of the same quilt she'd been covered by downstairs.

Her face was shadowed in the dimly lit room. She sucked in gasps of air between screams as her small hands flailed in front of her face.

Katherine made the first physical contact by touching those hands gently.

She continued her murmur of rea.s.surance and hushing sounds.

Sprite kept on flailing but just enough less vehemently for Katherine to detect the change. She let her own hands move with Sprite's while, at the same time, encouraging them toward quiet. The child's screams had begun to subside. Katherine thought about turning on the bedside lamp but decided against it. Any sudden change wouldn't be wise just yet. Meanwhile, Sprite's screaming had started to shape itself into words. Katherine strained to understand, but the child was still too tightly in the grip of hysteria to do anything other than gasp out incomprehensible syllables. Katherine continued her gentle monologue a few moments longer before pressing for more.

"Try to take a deep breath, Sprite," she said, just above a whisper.

"Breathe with me. Then we'll talk."

Katherine took slow, deliberate, exaggerated breaths and moved one hand to Sprite's back and stroked up and down there. Katherine kept those strokes even and circling in a hypnotic rhythm. Sprite responded slowly, but her sobs were quieter now. They grew more so by the minute under Katherine's patient ministrations. At last she thought it might be all right to attempt a more complicated communication.

"You can tell me whatever you want to," she said.

Sprite sniffled and shuddered. Her large eyes were wide open, catching the faint glimmer of light from the hallway.

She said something but shoved her thumb into her mouth at the same time so the words were lost. Katherine took hold of Sprite's hand and eased it away from her mouth.

"I couldn't understand you," Katherine said.

"Could you please tell me that again?"

The shadow deepened across Sprite's face so her eyes were no longer visible. Katherine realized that Vic had stepped closer, into the path of light from the door. He was probably trying to hear what Sprite had to say. Katherine thought about asking him to back off in case the child might be intimidated by his size. She would have done just that if Sprite hadn't breathed a small sigh right then and started to talk.

"My brother," she said.

"What about Coyote?" Katherine asked, being very careful not to let her eagerness to know the answer creep into her soothing voice.

"He's up on his roof," Sprite said. As her gasping slowed, her words took on a plaintive, pleading tone.

"He's on a roof?" Katherine encouraged.

"What's he doing there?"

Sprite shuddered.

"He's freezed into a snowman. I have to help him get down."

She collapsed against Katherine and began to sob. Katherine embraced the little girl's thin shoulders. They swayed together in a rocking motion. Katherine could feel Vic hovering nearby. She could almost hear the questions he must be dying to ask, and Vic wasn't known to be a patient man. However, he would have to be patient now, for as long as it took this precious, frightened child to feel safe enough to speak again.

Chapter Eleven Vic still had the gun tucked in the back of his waistband.

Ordinarily, he would have hated walking heavy, like the tough kids at the center called it, but not tonight. Tonight the pressure of metal against the small of his back felt as if he'd brought a friend along.