The crowds were already milling around Clark and Addison for the night game. She could smell the roasting peanuts. The doors to the neighborhood taverns were flung wide, and raucous music and the sharp tang of draft beer floated out into the streets.

Autumn closed her eyes and breathed it all in, letting herself remember.

The spring afternoons she had spent at Wrigley Field with her father were by far the happiest times of her childhood. Her dad would skip work at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and take her out of school to catch a Cubs game, a forbidden thrill made all the more thrilling because Helen never once found out. They used to giggle together the whole way home to Winnetka.

Autumn giggled with pleasure now-because the smells and sounds of Wrigley Field still made her happy.

"You can call me Audie," she said, turning back around in her seat as they drove past the ballpark. "And puh-leeze don't tell me you don't know I inherited the column from my mother, the real Homey Helen. It's not exactly a secret."

"I knew. I just didn't expect… well… you."

"Sorry to disappoint," she snapped.

Detective Quinn didn't respond. How could he? Everything he wanted to say would sound ridiculous, because, Holy God in heaven, she didn't disappoint him at all. She just amazed him.

He wanted to tell her he couldn't remember the last time that fifteen minutes with a woman had left him unhinged. He wanted to tell her he could barely prevent himself from reaching over and letting his fingertips brush the back of her neck. And most of all, he wanted to tell her that he was her biggest fan, that he kept many of her columns in a recipe organizer in his kitchen, sorted by date and topic.

"We'll need to discuss who you might have offended, Miss Adams, who it is that might hold a grudge against you. I'll need a list of husbands and boyfriends, current and ex-."