"And you think Larisa sold you out?"

Asked bare-faced and bluntly. Skater couldn't answer right away. "I don't know. I need to find out. If she didn't, she could be in danger."

Aggie's laugh was harsh and brittle. "You don't believe in anybody, do you?"

Skater didn't reply.

'Tell me." the dancer said, "when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, do you ever believe the guy you see standing there?"

"Sometimes," Skater replied honestly.

"You don't even know yourself. How the hell can you expect to know anyone else?"

Skater was confused by the logic. "I need to see Larisa."

"Maybe she doesn't need to see you." Aggie tumed and shook a long, gold tipped black cigarette out of a pack and lit it. Smoke curled around her head. "She loved you. Jack. More than anything or anyone. I didn't think she'd ever leave you, no matter what kind of life you lead or the way you walled yourself off from her. Whatever you did to hurt her, it must have been bad."

"I didn't do anything to her," Skater said. He'd asked himself for months what it could have been, replayed every conversation he could remember. None of it seemed enough to drive her away. "What did she tell you?”

"Nothing. But we noticed you didn't come around anymore and Larisa didn't smile as much. A month later she couldn't hide it any longer, and we figured you'd left because of the baby."

Skater felt like he'd been juiced with a double string from a Super Shock taser. "Baby?"

"Yeah, a baby-" Aggie heid out her hands to measure dimensions angrily. "You know, about this big, pink and round. Cries a lot." She stared hard at him.