'I think I can handle it.'

Ken wandered back to the basement, only to find that Marlene had recovered from her treatment and was glaring at him again. He grabbed the twine still noosed around her neck and pulled it taut until it rubbed raw against the wound he'd made with the knife. 'I have a feeling that you are going to be the key to me getting the answers I want, Mrs Anders. I have absolutely no compunction about putting marks on you, but we can play with the electricity for a little longer.'

He let her go, then turned to Stephanie. 'Let's begin again, shall we?'

Thirteen.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 10.45 A.M.

Scarlett blinked hard. The chair in Marcus's office felt far too soft and comfortable. It had old-fashioned wings that were slightly padded, perfect for a person to lean their head against for a nap. But right now you aren't that person. She gave her head a hard shake. Stay awake, Scar.

Fighting a yawn, she abruptly pushed to her feet. Walk, girl. And look. Her lieutenant had instructed her to find out if the man was hiding anything, after all. The opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Marcus through his things might not come again.

'I'm almost done,' Marcus said from behind the wall created by his two huge computer monitors. 'Another few minutes.'

'That's fine,' Scarlett said. 'I just need to stretch my legs.' She crossed the large wood-paneled office, stopping at the far wall.

Covered floor to ceiling with framed newspaper headlines, the wall had caught her attention the moment she'd walked into the room. Some were just the headlines themselves, others the entire front page. Haphazardly arranged, all but one of the frames displayed copies of the Ledger. The only other paper represented was the Malaya, the Filipino paper Marcus had mentioned that morning. He'd said that his grandfather had been in the Philippines during World War II, but the headline framed on the wall was much more recent, showing the deposition of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Scarlett wondered why it had been included. She also knew she was allowing her mind to wander, procrastinating the unpleasant task of telling Marcus about about Tala's baby. The news would undoubtedly upset him, but he needed to know.

But she could hear him still typing on his keyboard. She'd let him finish the list first. Then she'd tell him.

She returned her attention to the Ledger headlines the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the ending of World War II in both Europe and Asia. Sputnik and the moon landing. The assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. The explosion of Challenger. The fall of the Berlin Wall. 9/11. All events that had changed the world.

The local news was mostly sports and weather related. Headlines celebrated back-to-back World Series wins by the Cincinnati Big Red Machine in the seventies, and Pete Rose's breaking of Ty Cobbs's record. Side-by-side headlines recalled the historic Ohio River floods of 1937 and 1997.

'I remember that one,' Scarlett murmured, pointing at the photo under the 1997 headline. 'My uncle lost almost everything he owned. It was the first time in my life a headline affected me personally.'

'I remember it too,' Marcus said from his desk. 'I was with the photographer in the helicopter when he snapped that photo. Seeing what happened from the air . . . it was overwhelming.'

'I can imagine.' Her eyes swept across the wall again as she tried to ignore the tingle that tickled everything feminine inside her body every time the man spoke. 'It's like a history lesson. Right here in black and white.'

'I know.'

With a start she realized he was standing about a foot behind her, having somehow moved away from his desk without a sound. Keeping her gaze locked forward, she drew a quiet breath to slow the sudden tripping of her heart, but couldn't control the shiver that licked across her skin when his scent filled her head.

There should have been nothing extraordinary about his scent. Just soap and a hint of aftershave. She'd smelled the combination on men hundreds, thousands of times. She worked with men, had six brothers, for God's sake. But this . . . This was different. This was Marcus. She'd dreamed of him for months and now she was here with him. Close enough to touch.

Her hands itched to reach out to him, so she shoved them in her pockets. This was not the time or the place. She was on duty and late meeting Deacon at the park. Time to go, Scarlett. Before you do something you'll regret later. She'd opened her mouth to tell him she had to leave, with or without the list, when he spoke again, oblivious of her reaction to him.

'I spent some of the best hours of my childhood in this room,' he said quietly. Almost reverently. 'I'd ask my grandfather about each one of these headlines and he'd tell me the story.'

She glanced back over her shoulder, expecting him to be looking at the wall. But his eyes were focused on her face with an intensity that had her swallowing hard. He'd been staring at her, she realized, waiting for her to look at him.

With an effort she returned her attention to the wall, knowing her cheeks had to be bright red. 'Did, um, did all of these belong to your grandfather?'

He moved to her side, so close that she could feel the heat of his body. She wanted to lean, just a little, but she kept herself upright.

'Yes, but he didn't collect them all. Some belonged to my great-grandfather the really old ones, like the Wall Street Crash and Armistice Day in 1918. My grandfather took over the paper in the early fifties, so all the headlines up there after that were his.'

'Except the Malaya. Why is it there?'

'He became friends with a Filipino man while he was in the service, and they kept in touch. The man was part of the resistance effort to depose Marcos, and when they succeeded, he sent my grandfather a copy of the paper. Granddad said he was so proud of his friend that he hung the paper here. It's the only non-Ledger headline up there.'

'He was a loyal friend.'

'That he was. He was also a hoarder. There are boxes of clippings in my mother's basement. It's a damn fire hazard but I can't bring myself to throw any of it out.'

She heard the wistful affection in his voice. 'You loved him.'

A sigh. 'Yeah. He could be a hard man, but I loved him. He loved us too, in his own way.' A long pause. 'I think some of the things he'd seen, especially during the war, changed him so fundamentally that he couldn't easily open himself up after that. But occasionally we'd see the real him.'

In his own way did not sound promising. 'Was that a good thing?' she asked, not sure she really wanted to hear the answer. 'Seeing the real him, I mean.'

'Sometimes. He could be fun, but more often he'd be moody. Of course, we didn't often see that side of him. Not until we moved in with him.'

'When was that?'

Something indefinable flickered in his eyes. 'When I was eight.'

'Where did you live before?' she asked, trying not to sound like an interrogator.

He lifted a brow. 'Don't even try, Detective,' he said, and her cheeks heated.

'Sorry. I really am just curious, but old habits . . .' She shrugged. 'You know.'

'Yeah, I know,' he said, and for a moment he sounded so . . . incredibly sad. 'I was born in Lexington. So was Stone. So we were close enough to visit Granddad often, but we never stayed too long and I think he was able to hide the darker moods. When we moved in, well, pretty quickly we figured out the score. Sometimes he'd be the grandfather we'd known before, happy and funny, throwing a football around with us, giving us rides on his shoulders . . . But other times he'd be so angry. We were never really sure which grandfather we were going to get on any given day.'

She looked up at him with a frown. 'Did he hit you when he was angry?'

He looked down at her, one side of his mouth quirking up. 'Would you have protected me if he had?'

She narrowed her eyes. 'Yeah. I would have.'

The little quirk became a true smile, going all the way to his eyes, and Scarlett found herself momentarily awestruck. His face was a little too rugged to be classically handsome, but when he smiled . . . My God. He was beautiful.

'You would have been only about three years old when we moved in with him,' he said. 'But I appreciate the sentiment.'

'I was a damn tough three-year-old,' she said lightly. 'I had to be. I have six brothers.'

He tilted his head, looking intrigued. 'Older or younger?'

'Three of each.'

'Sisters?'

'No, none. I'm the only girl, though not from my parents' lack of trying. My mother finally gave up. And don't think I didn't realize that you failed to answer my question.'

He shook his head. 'I would never underestimate you like that. No. He never hit us. When he got that angry look in his eyes, he'd separate himself from the rest of us. He had a home gym in the basement. Punching bag, boxing ring, free weights. He'd go down there and work off his anger to the point that he could lock it away again.' He paused for a moment, thinking, then shook his head again. 'We always knew that when he came back upstairs from the gym, we wouldn't see the real him for a long while, in any form.'

'He wanted to protect you from himself,' she murmured, understanding more than Marcus knew. 'And himself from you.'

She knew she'd overstepped the moment the words came out of her mouth. Marcus pivoted so that their shoulders no longer nearly touched. It only widened the gap between them a few more inches, but it could have been a football field by the arctic look on his face.

'Excuse me?' Even his voice had grown coldly contemptuous. 'You didn't know him. You didn't know us. We never would have hurt him. Never.'

'I bet I know him better than you think,' she said quietly, clearly visualizing the tortured man beating the tar out of a punching bag rather than taking out his inescapable fury on small children. 'But you're right. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it the way you took it. I'm sorry.' Still in her pocket, her hand closed over her car keys, gripping them tightly. 'I'll leave now. You don't have to show me out.' She stepped to the side so that she could get by him without brushing against him. 'Please be careful. And don't hesitate to call me if you need me.'

He matched her step, blocking her path. 'Scarlett, I . . .' He shook his head, his expression no longer cold. No longer anything. He'd wiped the emotion from his features. 'I apologize.'

She pulled on her most professional face. 'No need. Now, if you'll let me pass, I need to go. This was supposed to have been a quick stop. I've been keeping Agent Novak waiting.'

His feet didn't budge, but his hand lifted to close gently over her shoulder, the movement slow and careful, as if he was afraid he'd spook her. 'Don't go,' he murmured. 'Not yet. Not like this. Tell me what you did mean.'

She could feel the warmth of his hand through the fabric of her jacket, and this time she gave in to the urge to lean into his touch, just a little. Then shivered when his thumb swept up the side of her neck, just once.

His exhale was ragged, his voice rough as he ran his hand down the length of her arm, lightly but briefly brushing his fingertips against the back of her hand. 'I know he wanted to protect us from himself. I knew that even when I was a kid. But why would he need to protect himself from us? How could we have hurt him?'

She met his eyes, understood the guarded trepidation she saw there because she felt the same way. Now that she had a second to think, she wished she hadn't said anything at all. Marcus O'Bannion was about as far from clueless as a man could get. Her answer would very likely expose her worst vulnerability.

But maybe he needed to see that. Fair warning and all that shit.

She thought of the framed copy of the Malaya on the wall behind her. 'You said he was in the Philippines. In Bataan. He must have seen, experienced, terrible things.'

'Then and later,' Marcus murmured. 'He was in the press corps in Korea.'

'It changes you, seeing death and dying. People suffering. Knowing you can't stop it or fix it. That you can only do so much. It damages you. Damages your soul. Pieces break off and shrivel up until they're not recognizable as anything that had ever been good. But it sounds like your grandfather still had a fair bit left inside him that was good. That could feel. That cared and, importantly, could maintain reason. He was an adult with strong hands. You were a child and he was afraid he might truly hurt you. That he was able to separate himself before he raised his hand to you is commendable. A lot of people can't do that, and they end up hurting the people they're supposed to love the most. Sometimes physically and sometimes emotionally.'

His eyes were locked on hers, warmer now. Less remote. 'We couldn't have hurt him physically. He was Stone's size and we were children. But we wouldn't have hurt him emotionally either, even when we grew up.'

'I know. I think he probably knew that too. But sometimes it doesn't matter what you know. The fear goes far deeper than that, because that piece of our soul that we keep is the connection to what's left of our humanity. If you allow yourself to open up, even to the people you love the most, and that good part somehow becomes damaged, too? What then?'

'You have nothing,' he murmured.

'Exactly. The need to protect isn't rational. It's instinctive, the way you protect an injured part of your body when you're in a fight. You want to be able to open the gate, to let people in, but only the people you love, who you can trust not to hurt you. Then you close the gate tight when you go back into the world. But sometimes it gets too hard to keep opening and closing the gate. You run out of strength.'

He finally broke eye contact, looking away. 'Or the gate becomes rusty.'

'True,' she said quietly, wondering if either of them was still talking about his grandfather. 'And sometimes you close the gate because you're ashamed to let anyone in. To let anyone see. Because you keep seeing things you can't unsee. And the damage spreads.'

'Like a rot,' he said flatly.

'Yep.' She drew a breath. 'So you close the gate tight. Quarantine the rot. Make sure it doesn't spread to anyone else.'

'So why not quit before the rot consumes you?' he asked, almost as if to himself.

'I suppose only the individual can answer that question for himself.'

He met her eyes once more, his no longer guarded but sharp. 'Or herself?'

She nodded soberly. 'Or herself.'

'So why, Scarlett? Why do you continue seeing things you can't unsee?'

The question took her by surprise. 'Because it's all I know how to do,' she answered honestly.

Anger flashed in those dark brown eyes. 'Let someone else do it.'

She smiled up at him sadly. 'And let the rot spread? That's not the way I'm built.' She cleared her throat. 'And now I'm even later meeting Deacon. I need to go. Just email me the list when it's done.'

'It is done. It's on the printer.' He crossed back to his desk and picked up the single sheet of paper. 'I'll email it to you as well, in case you want to send it to Deacon.'

She took it and scanned the short list of names only eight. Marcus had added the date of the threat, the exact wording, and a short summary of the article that had incited the person's anger to begin with.

Carefully she folded the paper and slid it into her jacket pocket. 'Thank you. And thank you for calling me this morning. I only wish I had gotten there a little sooner.'

'I wish I had too. I might have gotten her out of there alive.'

Scarlett looked over her shoulder, her eyes drawn to the copy of the Malaya, and she realized that she still hadn't told him about the baby. 'I don't think Tala would have left with you. Or with me, for that matter. She was going back to wherever she was being kept.'

He frowned down at her. 'How do you know?'

'Malaya wasn't just her way of asking you to free her family. I think Malaya is the name of her child.'

Marcus paled under his tan, just as she'd feared he would. 'Child? She had a child?'

'Yes.'

'How old?' he asked hoarsely. 'How old is the child?'

'It's hard to say exactly. The ME thought Tala might have given birth anywhere from one to three years ago. If I had to guess, I'd put the baby's age closer to a year. We found a teething ring in Tala's pocket and we know she was still nursing.'

His throat worked hard for a moment. 'She was only seventeen, Scarlett.'