Their connection wasn't meant to be.

"Yes. Okay.

No, just tell him I returned his call. I'll catch him later."

"Knock, knock." Caroline bustled in, all decked out in a signature floral dress, before Tara could pick up the receiver again.

"Here you go, hot off the presses."

"You're a doll. Sorry to have called you so early about this, but I wanted to be up on things before Hamilton gets here." Tara held out her hand and Caroline gave her a sheaf of papers.

"How's Donna?" she asked.

"Haven't heard from her in a month of Sundays." Caroline settled herself in the client chair.

"Fine. When you see her new boyfriend, you'll understand why the phone hasn't been ringing off the hook." Tara flipped through the papers.

"Did you open a file on him?"

"Much as I could. A name doesn't really const.i.tute a file. When he gets here, I'll fill in the rest."

"Fine." Tara abandoned the papers and pushed them aside.

"Fill me in on all this stuff. I'm still in overdrive after this morning. Blackwell doesn't have anything and Mason knows it. We'll probably settle, but I was so ready for a fight" "Today might be your lucky day if you're feeling feisty," Caroline said.

"I don't know what Mr. Hamilton's coming to talk to you about, but it should be interesting." She leaned over, almost rounder than she was tall, and pulled the faxes and Xeroxes her way, putting them in order like a gambler organizing his hand. When she was done, she had two piles: one large, the other considerably smaller. She talked about the smaller one first.

"Okay. We've got a couple of Circle K incidents last summer. One in early June. Had a trucker raped and beaten nearly to death." Caroline shook her head sadly.

"Sometimes I wonder if women's lib did us a favor. Women shouldn't be driving those rigs."

They sat in silence a moment, Tara thinking how lucky she was to have a choice in life, Caroline thankful she'd found Tara and this job when she did.

"Anyway. There were four robberies in Circle K parking lots and two a.s.saults on clerks. All in the early morning hours. Kids were doing the robberies.

Some in the city, some not. A drunk trucker was arrested for one of the a.s.saults. Never found the perp on the other one. And that brings us to July fourth. You've got to remember that one."

"Refresh my memory." Tara reached into her desk drawer for a compact and lipstick. She flipped it open, gave her lips a swipe, and put it away.

Caroline was running through the list.

"July fourth. Cops have the file open, no leads, no evidence or witnesses as of the last writing, which was"*she referred to the Xeroxes*"October third. I haven't been able to find out if anything has changed since then, but it's still early."

"Not to worry. I've got a call into George Amos.

I'll ask him. Let's keep going."

"This was a really sad one. It gives me the creeps to even think about it. The lady was alone working the graveyard shift. She'd been doing it for a long time, really knew the ins and outs. Anyway, it seems she was surprised while she was making coffee.

There was no struggle. She was shot, I don't know exactly where or how because they kept the details out of the paper. But I suggest you take a look at the July fifth and July eighth articles. That's going to give you a good overview in case this is the thing he wants to talk about." She shivered and pushed herself out of the chair.

"I hope this isn't the one he's got on his mind. It was just awful. I wouldn't want to be involved in it even in the smallest way. Just the thought of being alone in one of those stores all by myself late at night is enough to give me cardiac arrest. Not knowing who's going to walk in, n.o.body to help if the wrong person does. I know there isn't a good time to die, but so early in the morning?" Caroline wrapped her arms around herself. It wouldn't have surprised Tara to see the younger woman cross herself.

"I don't even know anyone who's up at three in the morning, much less thinking about killing someone in a convenience store just for fun*or whatever makes someone do something like that." Caroline tried to read over Tara's shoulder.

Tara gave her the eye. She straightened up.

"You're giving me the creeps," Tara said before pulling out the articles Caroline indicated.

"How do you do this? I can't believe you got this much information in a few hours."

Caroline beamed, her disquietude forgotten. It was lovely to be needed.

"My cousin works over at the Trib. His girlfriend is the receptionist in research. Her aunt knows how to work the new computer system and here you go, everything you ever wanted to know about the latest in criminal activity. It is what you wanted, right?"

"I'm sure this is it. Thanks, Caroline. As usual, I couldn't have done it without you." Tara shooed her away, anxious to begin.

"Close the door on the way out, please."

"You got it." Caroline headed out, but paused and gave a wink just before she slipped through the door.

"You look great, by the way."

Behind the closed doors Tara read accounts of the robberies and the rape. The reports were informative and seemed accurate. She set them aside," fundamental facts committed to memory. The a.s.saults were interesting, but nothing to write home about. There was only the murder left to review.

Suddenly tired, Tara sat back and twisted her chair toward the bank of windows behind her. Outside it was cold but not frigid, a bl.u.s.tery kind of day that she usually loved. Nine stories below was a sweep of concrete that was Tara's stage. But today the plaza was a lonely place. People didn't pepper the weatherworn benches, or chat as they made their way in or out of the building, or stand together nursing takeout coffee. The few who straggled in and out of the building were uninteresting for their lack of purpose, small and insignificant from this height. Nothing but dark specks blowing around the landscape.

Dark little .. . specks.

Tara froze before sitting up straighter to peer more intensely at something*or someone*who caught her eye below. There. She tagged it. Movement.

Behind the concrete pillar. Third on the left.

Beside the fountain was someone who didn't move.

Watching her. Her window was one out of hundreds in the high-rise yet Tara knew with certainty there were eyes on her. Unwavering, intent, vicious eyes.

Her heart thumped hard and there was a pulse farther down in the pit of her stomach that quickened.

It was an ill-defined feeling, half pleasurable and half frightening, and it filled her to bursting.

Tara sat forward in her chair, so close to the expanse of gla.s.s she felt the tug of vertigo. Yet she couldn't move away, nor take her eyes off that dark spot below. Her mind was atwirl with the possibilities of what this speck might become. Man? Woman?

Fantasy creature come to haunt her from some forgotten nightmare? Then it was gone, turning behind the pillar in a blink, leaving her breathless and intrigued and thoroughly amused by her own nonsense.

Someone was simply waiting, or having a smoke.

She looked again and the thought that someone had waited or watched for her was still there. How horrible to think about it. Faceless, unknown to her, but not she to him. Tara shut her eyes, feeling so vulnerable and small, laid bare like a lady of the night being picked for a ten spot by the meanest man in town.

"Knock, knock."

Startled, Tara jumped and swiveled back to the door, her cheeks burning red with embarra.s.sment.

"I scared you. I'm sorry. I should have known.

Reading that stuff will make you a basket case. Here, I just brought some tea. Sorry." Caroline backed out of the room, apologizing quietly until the door was closed. Tara turned back. It was only a cold, bl.u.s.tery day outside. The kind she loved and now there was no one at all in the plaza, not a speck or a man or a creature from a long-forgotten nightmare.

Tara turned away from the window, but found it necessary to breathe deeply before she began to read about the killing at the Circle K. Six articles. The first had run on the front page of the Journal, wrapping over to page three, describing a sadly senseless murder of a woman who had a lot to live for. Marge Hogan had been a two-year Circle-superior employee when she was killed in the aisle near the coffee urn. Inventory checked out. Not even a stick of gum had been taken. Mrs. Hogan had no criminal history. Post mortem, her praises were sung by one and all. This wasn't a hit. It wasn't revenge. There wasn't even a jealous boyfriend waiting in the wings toward whom the long finger of the law could be pointed.

The lady with a half-dozen bullet holes in her had been happily married since she was sixteen and was the mother of four children.

A tragic death, softened, she supposed, by the fact that the woman had been loved and lived well.

Tara read on, grateful she didn't deal with this kind of thing every day. Johnnie Rae's drunken spree had ended in a manslaughter charge, but that didn't come close to matching this unjustifiable act of violence.

Marge Hogan hadn't crossed anyone, bore no grudges, and was scheduled to sing her first solo in the church choir the following Sunday. And at the time of her death, the lady was pregnant. Pregnant!

A jury would draw and quarter whoever had killed her. In a place like Albuquerque, where life from bug to bush was considered a treasured thing, a pregnant woman was as close to sacred as you could get.

Tara flipped through the next few sheets. As expected, coverage of the Circle K killing diminished with the lack of information until, finally, Marge Hogan, her grieving family, and her unborn child were relegated to the back page and two paragraphs, a journalistic mumble that indicated police would continue to work on the case. By October, she had disappeared from the public eye. Everyone had given up on Marge.

Tara shoved the papers aside, remembering the crime now, remembering the detached outrage she had felt. Tara even remembered thinking how interesting it would be to work on such a case, a crime curious for its lack of rhyme or reason. How small of her to have had so little respect for the horror that woman must have felt, the grief the crime had caused. What if it had been someone she loved? What if it had been her? Tara shoved away from the desk with a mental mea culpa and a fleeting thought that she could easily let her imagination run away with her if she read stuff like this on a daily basis. That was when Caroline interrupted again.

This time she simply put her knuckles discreetly to Tara's office door. It swung open, but instead of bustling in, Caroline called from outside the door, making her announcement like a crier to the queen.

"Mr. Hamilton."

Five.

Tara didn't stand though it was her usual habit.

Perhaps it was the account she'd just read, the odd angle of her chair, or the surprise of seeing Bill Hamilton again that kept her in her seat. He was a sight to behold. She smiled and he settled himself in the client chair as easily as he had relaxed in her home. Good old boy. Rhinestone cowboy.

He did have a way about him.

"Hope it's okay, Tara," he said, "I'm a little early.

Hung out for a while but I'll tell you, it's d.a.m.n cold."

"Too cold to stand around outside." She moved her chair closer to the desk.

"Gotta get me a better jacket." He held open his denim one. It was old, well worn, and unlined, a jacket no self-respecting gigolo would wear.

"So where did you leave our friend? Still getting her beauty sleep?" Tara made small talk as she usually did to settle a new client's nerves.

"d.a.m.n straight." Bill laughed, shifting again, crossing those very long legs.

"Donna's just like a kid. If she has a big night she sleeps *til noon. Never seen a woman who wasn't up and about at the crack o' dawn. Guess that's the difference between city women and country women, huh? You're up early, though. Saw you out there with that horse of yours."

"You should have come out." Tara lost her smile, at the same rate his eyes lost some of their humor. He looked hard and she wondered if he was more than simply a sleepless man. Yet what more could he be? There wasn't much to watch in the early hours on a place like Tara's. Nothing but the countryside*or her.

"The coffee's free, you know. You should have joined me."

Bill shook his head and Tara saw a prism behind his eyes, the third dimension of his optical biology.

It was as mesmerizing as the bedroom voice he now used.

"Naw. You looked too good just standin' there.

Must be nice to be that way. Content. Know your place."

"It has its advantages." Tara inclined her head, more to break the spell than to acknowledge the correctness of his observation.

"Yeah. I just bet it does." These words were clipped and impatient in tone though he tried to hide it. Fear was there too. The story of his trouble wouldn't be long in coming.

He smiled again, but it wasn't the electric grin of the night before. His hands went to his thighs, ma.s.saging the lean muscle. Then one arm was over the back of the chair again.

"So, now that you're my lawyer, I guess we better get to it, right?" Bill moved and pushed his hair back. Both hands seemed unable to find a place to light.

"I'm gonna have to tell you, Tara, I'm grateful as can be that you took me on. I'm a little nervous about this. Never talked to a lawyer before.

Lot of doctors, but that's different. This feels weird." His whole body rippled in a nervous little wave as if he was excited beyond containment.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. A lawyer is like r a doctor or a priest. What you tell me, as your lawyer, is confidential." Tara said the words the way she'd said them a hundred times. And a hundred times, she wished for some like experience so that she could understand her client's apprehension.

The only thing to be gained in the confines of this office was help and, she hoped, a resolution to the problem at hand.

"A preacher'll die before he tells what you told him. Is that true for lawyers, too?" Bill chuckled.

Tara couldn't help but smile, "You won't find many martyrs in our ranks. We'll go into the lion's den, but we'll talk it to death before we let it eat us. However, we do take our oath of confidentiality very seriously."

"I'll just bet you do." Bill made it sound like a prurient act. Then he perked up.

"It's amazing."

He raised his hand and twirled it in the air, ready to flick his la.s.so and capture her. His nervousness vanished. The cowboy was back.

"Don't know, Tara. I don't think I could do it. I'd spill the beans for sure. "Specially if it was something' bad. Or really evil."

"You wouldn't if it was what you believed in.

Priests and lawyers, doctors, too, are each two different people. One part of them is just like everyone else. They laugh and get hurt and have all the emotions everyone else does. The other part though, is separate, above the pull of emotions. If that weren't true, a lawyer couldn't defend someone he knew to be guilty, a doctor couldn't operate for fear of inflicting pain, a priest couldn't give absolution because his human side would cry out for retribution of the sin."