"Because Teresa's so empathic she couldn't turn anyone away. Roane is too much the bleeding heart to turn tearful women away." He adjusted his dove grey tie, fingers smoothing over the diamond stickpin. "The others are good for grunt work, but they aren't decision makers. That leaves you."

I met his eyes, trying to read past the anger, the worry, to what was really going on inside his head. "You're not an empath, and you're not a bleeding heart, and you make dandy decisions, so why can't you make this one?"

"Because if we turn them away, they won't have anywhere else to go. If they leave this office without our help, they're both dead."

I stared at him, and finally understood. "You know we should walk away from this one, but you can't bring yourself to pass judgment on them. You can't bring yourself to condemn them to death."

He nodded. "Yes."

"What makes you think that I can do it, if you can't?"

"I'm hoping one of us is sane enough not to be this stupid."

"I won't get you all killed for the sake of strangers, Jeremy, so be prepared to walk away from this one." Even to me, my voice sounded hard, cold.

He smiled again. "That's my little cold-hearted bitch."

I shook my head and walked toward the door. "It's one of the reasons you love me, Jeremy. You count on me not to flinch."

I walked out into the hallway that led between offices, sure that I would turn these women away. Certain that I would be the wall that kept us all safe from Jeremy's good intentions. Goddess knows, I'd been wrong before, but seldom as wrong as I was about to be.