He barely heard Lavender when she asked, "So did you and the hottie figure out what happened to Christi?"

"Damn!" He had a pair of aces, but he couldn't pull a third ace on the draw. "What did you say?"

"Christi. The girl who got killed. Did you find out who did it?"

Cordy watched another seventy-five bucks come and go on the next series of hands. "Huh? Oh, not yet Serena's in Minnesota now."

"Minnesota?"

Cordy nodded. "Yeah, the girl, Christi, came from some town up north in Minnesota. Looks like someone from home paid her a visit"

Cordy bet the max again and held his breath. He pumped his fist when he saw four-fifths of a spade flush flip up on the original deal. "Come on, mama, give me a spade."

Lavender wasn't watching the screen. She let one finger slip between his legs, where she traced the swelling there. "Is that from me or the game?"

Cordy didn't answer. He carefully held four cards, then punched the draw button and held his breath. "Fuck!"

Lavender sighed and removed her hand. She began studying her painted nails. "I see why I don't gamble."

"Huh?" Cordy said idly.

"Nothing. I'm surprised whoever killed Christi was from out of town. I would have thought it was that creepy boyfriend of hers."

"Yes!" Cordy shrieked as the machine dealt him three kings. "Come on, four of a kind, four of a kind!"

He fluttered his fingers over the button, then pushed it with a silent prayer. The remaining cards popped up: three, ace, seven, nine, queen, king.

"Yes!" Cordy screamed, watching the fourth king fill out the third hand. "Yes!" He grabbed Lavender, wrapped her tightly in his arms, and planted a long, extended kiss on her lips, to which she responded with enthusiasm. When he disentangled himself and looked back, he saw he had doubled his money. More than five hundred bucks!

Cordy cashed out, relishing the loud clanking of five-dollar coins banging into the tray. He filled two plastic buckets with the coins and stacked them on top of each other as he peered around for the nearest change booth. With the buckets under one arm and Lavender hanging on his other side, he strutted through the casino as if he were on top of the world. At the booth, he handed the buckets to the attendant and watched her pile them into the counting machine, then licked his lips as the numbers shot over a thousand dollars.

It was only then that his brain caught up with the whirl of thoughts in his head. Cordy felt his blood turn to ice, and he swung around on Lavender, his face tense and his fantasies of sex and money leeching away.

"Boyfriend?"

Stride and Serena sat in the dark in his truck, underneath a broken streetlight, parked opposite Kevin and Sally's university apartment building. The truck windows were open, letting the cool evening air blow through with a few lingering raindrops. They had staked out the building for an hour. He knew they could have waited until morning to talk to them, but he wanted the element of surprise, before Kevin and Sally had time to rehearse their reactions.

It also gave him a reason not to go home, which was the last place he wanted to be. That was the ugly truth. He was intensely attracted to Serena, and he wanted to be with her. Not with Andrea. Not with his own wife.

She was a silhouette seated next to him, but he knew that she could feel him studying her. Broadcasting his feelings. Shouting them silently.

"Tell me about Phoenix," he said. "About your past"

She shook her head. "I don't talk about that"

"I know. But tell me anyway."

"Why do you care about my past?" Serena asked. "You don't know me."

"That's why. I want to know you."

Serena was silent. He heard her breathing, which was fast and nervous.

"What is it you really want Jonny?" she asked. "To sleep with me?"

Stride didn't know what to say. "How do I answer that?" he said finally. "If I say no, you know I'm lying. If I say yes, then I'm another shallow cop looking for an affair."

"You wouldn't be the first"

"I know that. And all I can say is, I know where I should be. Home. Not here with you. This is not me, not the man I am. But here I am anyway."

"You tell me something," Serena said, turning to him in the dark. "Maggie says your marriage is over. That it was over three years ago. Is that true?"

He was tired of pretending. "It's true."

"Don't you lie to me, Jonny," Serena insisted. "I'm nobody's fling, understand? You don't know how rare it is for me to talk to a man like this. Particularly someone I just met"

"I think I do. And I'm not lying."

"Tell me why. Why it's over."

He struggled to find the right words. "We've both got ghosts rattling around in our attic. Her first husband ran off. I couldn't fill the void."

"And what about you? What's your ghost's name?"

Stride smiled. "Cindy."

"Did she break your heart?"

Enough time had passed that Cindy was a dull ache in his soul, not the sharp wound she once was. He told Serena about losing her, and it was a faraway tragedy, as if it had happened to someone else. Serena listened silently, then reached over and laced her fingers with his.

For a few still moments, the truck was a bubble, a little universe of its own.

"You really want my story?" Serena asked.

"I do."

He could see her wrestling with her fear and mistrust.

"When I was fifteen in Phoenix, my mom got into drugs," she began quietly. "She became addicted. She ran through our money. We lost our house. My dad left us. Left me."

Her voice sounded flat, not like Serena at all, as if she had drained the emotions out of her words. He sensed that something profound was happening between them, that she had invited him into a world that was previously just for her.

"We moved in with her dealer. I guess you could say I was part of my mother's payment plan. He did whatever he wanted with me. My mother would watch, stoned out of her mind."

Stride felt his emotions stir. He was angry for her. Protective.

"I got pregnant," Serena continued. "I went to a clinic by myself and had an abortion. And then I never went home again. If I went home, I knew I'd kill them both. I mean that I spent time thinking about how I would kill them. But I wasn't going to give up my own life because of what they'd done to me. So I hooked up with a girlfriend, and we took the bus to Vegas. Sixteen years old, alone on the Strip. I took shit jobs in the casinos. I went to school at night. Became a cop."

"Most girls with that background would have wound up dead."

"I know. Like Rachel."

"You're amazing," he told her.

Serena shook her head. "I'm no angel. I can be a bitch. Most guys would tell you that I am. I've spent most of my life fending off men."

"Why aren't you fending me off?" he asked. "Or is that what you're trying to do?"

"Sure I am, Jonny. For your sake."

He didn't say anything. When a lamp went on in the nearest apartment, it cast a faint light on their faces. He found his eyes drawn to her pale lips. She was conscious of his desire, and she let her lips barely part Hesitating, uncertain, she leaned toward him, her long hair tumbling forward.

The light went off again, as quickly as it came. They were invisible as they kissed. Then Serena pulled away, and they were silent for the next hour, without any need to talk.

The strawberry Malibu pulled up around midnight.

They watched Kevin and Sally shrug backpacks onto their shoulders and tramp wearily up the steps of the apartment building. When they were inside, Stride touched Serena's shoulder, and they followed across the street.

Stride knocked on the third-floor apartment door, and Kevin answered immediately, his eyes bloodshot. Kevin assessed him suspiciously, then realized who he was. The recognition dawned, and Kevin, quick as lightning, knew why he was there.