'My lungs are better since I quit. I can't vouch for my liver,' I said. 'I haven't given up whiskey yet.'

'Don't, for God's sake. You'd be no fun.' She paused, adding pointedly, 'Course, feelings can be directed, educated, so they don't conspire against us.'

'I will probably leave tomorrow.' I got back to that.

'You have to go to London first to change planes.' She met my eyes. 'Linger there. A

day.'

'Pardon?'

'It's unfinished business, Kay. I have felt this for a long time. You need to bury Mark

James.'

'Margaret, what has suddenly prompted this?' I was tripping over words again.

'I know when someone is on the run. And you are, just as much as this killer is.'

'Now, that's a comforting thing to say,' I replied, and I did not want to have this conversation.

But she was not going to let me escape this time. 'For very different reasons and very similar reasons. He's evil, you're not. But neither of you wants to be caught.'

She had gotten to me and could tell.

'And just who or what is trying to catch me, in your opinion?' My tone was light but I

felt the threat of tears.

'At this stage, I expect it's Benton Wesley.'

I stared off, past the gurney and its protruding pale foot tied with a tag. Light from above shifted by degrees as clouds moved over the sun, and the smell of death in tile and stone went back a hundred years.

'Kay, what do you want to do?' she asked kindly as I wiped my eyes.

'He wants to marry me,' I said.

I flew home to Richmond and days became weeks with the weather getting cold. Mornings were glazed with frost and evenings I spent in front of the fire, thinking and fretting. So much was unresolved and silent, and I coped the way I always did, working my way deeper into the labyrinth of my profession until I could not find a way out. It was making my secretary crazy.