The board game was important to Jack and Jill. It was a game of chance. It made it impossible for the police or FBI to predict their movements or their motive.

If there was a motive. But of course there was a motive.

Sam rolled the dice again. Then he moved the marker. Sara watched him in the warm, flickering glow of the fire. Her eyes glazed over slightly She was remembering their very first meeting, the initial contact between them. The beginning of every thing that was happening now.

This was how the complex and beautiful and very mysterious game had begun. They had agreed to meet at a coffee shop inside a bookstore in downtown D.C. Sara had arrived first, her heart trapped in her throat. Everything about the meeting was insane, maybe dangerously insane, and insanely irresistible to her. She couldn't pass up this chance, this opportunity, or especially this cause. The cause was everything to her.

At the time of their first meeting, she had no idea what Sam Harrison would look like, and she was surprised and delighted when he sat at her table. He excited her.

She had seen him enter the coffeehouse area, watched him order espresso and a scone. She hadn't imagined that the dreamy-looking man at the counter would turn out to be Harrison, though.

So this was The Soldier. This was her potential partner. He kind of fit in at the bookstore. He would fit in anywhere. He didn't look like a killer, but then again, neither did she. He looks a little like an airline pilot, Sara thought as she sized him up. A successful Washington lawyer? He was over six feet tall, trim and fit.

He had a strong, confident face. And he also had the brightest, clearest blue eyes. He had a sensitive, gentle look about him.

Not at all what she had expected. She liked him immediately She knew that they agreed on the important things in life, that they shared a vision.

“You're looking at me as if I'm supposed to be a bad person, and you're surprised that I'm not,” he'd said as he sat across from her at the cafe “I'm not a bad person, Sara. You can call me Sam, by the way I'm a pretty good guy, actually”