"My daughter – we buried Mandy last month." "Oh Quincy, I'm sorry," Rainie responded instinctively, then fisted her hands before she did something awkward such as reaching out to him. She knew the story behind Mandy's automobile accident. Last April, Quincy 's twenty-three-year-old daughter had collided head-on with a telephone pole in Virginia, causing permanent brain damage as well as shattering her face. At the hospital, she'd immediately been put on life support, though that had only been intended to sustain her organs long enough to gain permission for harvest. Unfortunately, Quincy 's ex-wife, Bethie, had confused life support with life, and refused to have the machines turned off. Quincy and Bethie had argued. Finally, Quincy had left the bedside vigil to return to work, a decision that had alienated his ex-wife even more.

"Bethie finally gave permission," Rainie supplied.

Quincy nodded. "I didn't think… In my mind, Mandy has been dead for well over a year. I didn't think it would be this hard."

"She was your daughter. It would be strange if it were easy."

"Rainie…" He appeared on the verge of saying something more, maybe caught up in this moment when they seemed like old friends again. Then the moment passed. He shook his head. He said, "I want to hire you."

"Why?"

"I want you to look into my daughter's accident. I want you to make sure that it was an accident." Rainie was too flabbergasted to speak. Quincy read her doubt and rushed on firmly: "Some things have come up. I want you to investigate them."

"I thought she was drunk," Rainie said, still trying to get her bearings. "Drunk, hit a man, a dog, and a telephone pole. End of story."

"She was drunk. The hospital confirmed that she had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit, but it's how she came to be drunk that has me concerned. I met a few of her friends at the funeral, and one of them, Mary Olsen, claims that Amanda spent most of the evening at Mary's house, playing cards and drinking Diet Coke. Now, I hadn't spoken with Mandy in a bit. You… you know I haven't had the closest relationship with her. But apparently, Amanda had joined AA six months before her accident and was doing very well. Her friends were very proud of her."

In spite of herself, Rainie frowned. "Did something happen during the card game? Get her upset, make her drive straight to a bar?"

"Not according to Mary Olsen. And Amanda didn't leave until nearly two-thirty in the morning, after the bars were closed."

"Was she alone?"

"Yes."

"Maybe she drove home and got drunk."

"And then got back into her car to drive where?"

Rainie chewed her bottom lip. "Okay, maybe she had liquor stashed in her car and started drinking the minute she left the party."

"No containers were found in her vehicle or in her apartment. Plus, the liquor stores would all be closed, so she couldn't have purchased it that night."

"Maybe she'd bought it before arriving at her friend's, then she threw away the empty containers on her way home. You know, to cover her tracks."

"Amanda crashed fifteen miles from her apartment, on some back road that bears no direct relationship to Mary Olsen's house or hers."

"As if she was just out driving…"

"Drunk, at five-thirty in the morning, with no obvious supply of alcohol," Quincy finished for her. "Rainie, I'm concerned."

Rainie didn't answer right away. She was still turning the facts over in her mind, trying to make the pieces fit. "She could have gone to someone else's house after leaving Mary's."

"It's possible. Mary said Amanda had met a man a few months before. None of Amanda's friends had met him yet, but he was supposedly a very nice man, very supportive. My daughter… Amanda told Mary that she thought she might be in love."

"But you never met this guy?"

"No."

She cocked her head to the side. "What about at the funeral? Surely he attended the funeral?"

"He didn't attend the funeral. No one knew his name or how to contact him."

Rainie gave Quincy a look. "If he's that great, he would've found you by now. Surely Mandy mentioned her father, and given the amount of press you've received on various cases…"

"I've thought of that."

"But no sign of Mr. Wonderful."

"No."

Rainie finally got it. "You don't think this was an accident, do you? You think it is Mr. Wonderful's fault. He got your little girl drunk, then let her drive home."

"I don't know what he did," Quincy replied quietly, "but somehow, Amanda got access to alcohol between two-thirty and five-thirty in the morning, and it cost her her life. She was troubled. She had a history of drinking… Yes, I would like to hear his side of things."

" Quincy, this isn't a case. This is one of the five stages of grief. You know – denial."

Rainie tried to utter the words gently, but they came out bald, and almost immediately, Quincy was pissed off. His lips thinned. His eyes grew darker, his features harsher. For the most part, Quincywas an academic, prone to approaching the world as a puzzle to be analyzed and solved. But he was also a hunter; Rainie had seen that side of him, too. Once – their final evening together – she had fingered the scars on his chest.

"I want to know what happened the last night of my daughter's life," Quincy uttered firmly, precisely. "I'm asking you to look into it. I'm willing to pay your fees. Now, will you take the case or not?"

"Oh for God's sake." Rainie bolted out of her chair. She paced the room a few times so he wouldn't see how mad he'd just made her, then said sourly, "You know I'll help you, and you know I won't take your damn money."

"It's a case, Rainie. A simple case, and you don't owe me anything."

"Bullshit! It's another bread crumb you're tossing my way and we both know it. You're an FBI agent. You have access to your own crime lab; you have one hundred times the number of contacts I do."

"All of whom will want to know why I'm asking questions. All of whom will pry into my family's life and will sit in judgment of my concerns, even if they are too polite to accuse me of denial."

"I'm only saying – "

"I know I'm in denial! I'm her father, for God's sake. Of course I'm in denial. But I'm also a trained investigator, just like you, Rainie, and something about this stinks. Look me in the eye and tell me it doesn't stink."

Rainie stopped. She mutinously looked him in the eye. Then she wished she hadn't, because his jaw was tight and his hands were clenched into fists, and dammit she liked him when he was like this. The rest of the world could have composed, professional Pierce Quincy. She wanted this man. At least she had.

"Did you ask the DA to drop the charges against me?" she demanded.

"What?"

"Did you ask the DA to drop the charges against me?"

"No." He shook his head in bewilderment. "Rainie, I'm the one who told you to go through with the trial, that it was probably the best way to put the past behind you. Why would I then interfere?"

"Fine, I'll take your case."

"What?"

"I'll take your case! Four hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. And I don't know beans about Virginia or motor vehicle accident investigation, so no accusing me later of not having enough experience. I'm telling you now, I'm inexperienced, and it's still going to cost you four hundred dollars a day."

"There you go with that charm again."

"I'm a fast learner. We both know I'm a fast learner." She said that more savagely than she'd intended. Quincy 's face nearly softened, then he caught himself.

"Deal," he said crisply. He picked up his jacket, drew out a manila envelope and dropped it on her glass coffee table. "There's the accident report. It includes the name of the investigating officer. I'm sure you'll want to start with him."