Wolper had gotten himself cornered. He could give her a phony address, but what would that accomplish? She would only come back to hassle him again. And if he kept putting her off, she would put Wagner on the case. That was all he goddamn neededa deputy chief breathing down his neck.

He drummed his fingers on the desk for a long moment, then picked up a plain index card and wrote on it in block letters. He almost handed it to her, but hesitated. He really did not want her to have this information. If she knew what was good for her, she wouldn't want it, either.

"Going here is not a good idea, Dr. Cameron. Believe me."

"Bad neighborhood?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"VFW?"

He was surprised she knew the term, and even more surprised she'd used it. "Definitely. But that's not the only reason. It's the nature of the establishment itself. To be blunt, I can't vouch for your personal safety."

She wasn't backing down. "Are you going to give me the address or not?"

Reluctantly he surrendered the card.

"You're putting yourself in danger if you go," he said.

"Maybe you'd like to accompany me."

"Can't do that, I'm afraid. It's off my beat. Besides amp; I shouldn't be seen there."

Something flickered in her eyes, and he knew she'd understood why he filled out the index card in capitals instead of his normal, identifiable handwriting.

"And if anyone asks how I got the address amp;?" she began.

"You never received it from me."

"I'll keep that in mind. So you think I can find him at this address?"

"Can't guarantee it. But it's your best shot."

She stood. "Thanks for your help. By the way, what exactly does VFW stand for?"

"I thought you knew."

"I don't. It's just something I picked up."

"Well amp; not everything about the LAPD is politically correct, even today. It stands for 'very few whites.'"

"I see."

"Shocked?" He allowed himself to smile at her.

"It takes more than that to shock me, Lieutenant Wolper. Thanks again for your help."

She left, shutting the door. Wolper stared after her.

She wasn't quite what he'd expected. He had imagined someone more timid. Instead she was stubborn and tough. Maybe not as tough as she wanted to appear, but tough enough.

He might have made a mistake telling her Brand's whereabouts. But he hadn't believed she would be crazy enough to go there. Even now, he couldn't believe it. When she saw the neighborhood, she would back off.

At least, he hoped she would.

Wolper had been right about one thing, Robin decided.

It was a bad neighborhood.

But he was wrong if he thought she'd turn back.

She guided the Saab deeper into the maze of streets that ran parallel to Imperial Highway, heading east, toward Watts. The fractured windshield and blown-out side window and dented trunk were not out of place here. She actually welcomed the damage. It helped her fit in.

After leaving the police station, she'd continued south on Central Avenue, past Florence Avenue. It was at the corner of Florence and Normandie, about a half mile away, that the 1992 riots had erupted. She hadn't lived in LA then. She had watched the news coverage from the home she and Dan had shared in Santa Barbara, until four-year-old Meg had wandered in to ask what was going on. Then Robin had switched to a cartoon show.

She had always tried to protect her daughter. But if that was true, why had she brought Meg here, to a city of random carjackings and drive-bys, a city that seemed to be losing its mind?

The address Wolper had given her was near the intersection of Imperial Highway and Compton Avenue. The spot was six miles south of the Newton Area station, but that distance was deceptive. If Newton was a borderland, this was enemy territory, one that a middle-class white woman with an expensive car and a postgraduate degree was not expected to enter.

She didn't know which gangs fought over this turf, but she could see their markings on every wall and fence and trash bin, the loops and squiggles of spray paint visible everywhere, even on the boles of drooping, sickly palm trees. The thump of rap music pounded from boom boxes set on curbs and from the radios of jacked-up cars, cruising the streets. Most of the people were dressed in black, and she wondered about that at first, until she realized that it was dangerous to wear colors on gang turf. Although it was a school day, kids lounged on street corners and in vacant lots and alleys, wearing loose T-shirts and do-rags, watching her roll past with suspicious eyes.

Every pair of eyes was a flashback to this morning's attack, the thump of the crowbar, the crunch of glass amp;

Not too late to turn back, she reminded herself.

She kept going. The address wasn't far now.

She thought of how narrowly she had escaped this kind of poverty after her father died in jail. Her mother had worked two jobs to keep up the mortgage payments.

If they'd lost their home, if they'd had to move to a neighborhood like this, would it have changed her? She already had a father who was a felon. Throw in an environment seemingly designed to breed criminals, and what would have been the result? She liked to believe she could have maintained her sense of self even under that kind of pressure. But she couldn't be sure. What dictated the direction of a human life? Nature, nurture, free will, destiny? What was the formula, or was life too complex to be expressed as a formula?

She shook her head. If there was an answer to that question, she wouldn't find it here, now.

She continued driving east, deeper into Watts. Part of her wanted to be angry at Brand for putting her through this ordeal, but she couldn't entirely blame him. He had been given no choice about taking part in the program. In the LAPD, a troubled officer could be ordered to undergo any form of counseling. Being sent to the bank, it was called, because the LAPD's Behavioral Sciences unit, where the psychologists worked, was housed above a bank in Chinatown. To be sent to the bank was to face the possible closing of one's accountthe end of a career.

Brand had been spending a lot of time at the bank. His new course of treatment was only an extension of the mandated therapy he'd been receiving from Dr. Alvin, one of the Behavioral Sciences shrinks. When Alvin had failed to make progress, Brand's case had been labeled treatment-refractory, suitable for experimental intervention. And now he was required to see a new doctor for a therapeutic technique that the patrol cops this morning had characterized as "putting wires in their heads."

No wonder Sergeant Brand was resistant to the idea. He didn't seem like the docile type, anyway. From Alvin's briefing, she knew that Brand had grown up in Pico Rivera, a tough, blue-collar town south of LA. He had been in the department for fourteen years, working the high-crime districts of Southwest, Rampart, and now Newton. His ID photo showed a man with rough-hewn features and a thick neck starting to wrinkle into a double chin. His eyes were dark and hard to read under the heavy tufts of his eyebrows. His head was shaved at the sides, his hair thin and short like black bristles on top. He looked older than his age, forty-one.

Not a man who could be pushed around, she thought. And also not a man who would be easily traumatized. But a fatal shooting was enough to traumatize anyone, especially given the fact that Sergeant Brand had never fired his gun on duty before the night of February 9, three months ago.

That night had changed him. Brand had become a different man. Now, facing a new form of therapy, he was scared, and he was hiding. But not for much longer. She would find him, and in the end, she hoped, he would thank her for it.