There were rewards, yes. The occasional bout of loneliness was worth it, if you waited for the shining moments, when you had the opportunity to make a difference. When your efforts counted, and you knew that you had done your best in the pursuit of something very much worthwhile.

Rebecca Kent was on the porch with key in hand before she saw the door. It stood ajar, perhaps two inches, and she could see brand-new scratches on the locking mechanism from where she stood. She thought of Grant, his badge and uniform, and wished that he was here, beside her now, to throw the door back and step inside with perfect confidence. She could retreat, drive back to Stancell's and report the break-in, but she could not bring herself to leave without examining the damage first.

And if the burglar was inside?

It was preposterous. No one broke into offices in broad daylight, with the business hours clearly posted right out front. Someone — a tramp, some kids, whoever — had already come and gone under cover of darkness. Seeking drugs, most likely, or her small reserve of petty cash. There would be nothing else inside to interest anyone, unless their aim was vandalism. Sudden anger crowded out her apprehension and she took a bold step forward, fuming at the thought of strangers pawing through her personal belongings, damaging her medical equipment.

Braced to run at any sign of the intruder, suddenly aware that she was very much afraid, Rebecca Kent was startled to discover an unconscious figure stretched out on the floor. A man, all bruised and dusty, but his trench coat was not something that a hobo off the freights would wear. Beneath it, he appeared to wear some kind of close-fitting black garment, but now her eyes were focused on the blood. So much of it, some crusty brown, as if the wound were hours old but had refused to close.

She knelt beside him, drew the trench coat back and saw the holstered weapon on his hip. She dared not touch it, frightened that it might go off, so she unbuckled the web belt, slipped it from underneath him and pushed it away out of reach. The wound was in his side, but she would have to get him on the table before she could begin an adequate examination. And for that she would require his help.

He was a stranger. She had never seen his face before, and she would definitely have remembered this one. She had never seen a pistol like the one he carried, either, and she wondered if he was some kind of soldier, possibly a spy. It seemed absurd; there were no secrets to be kept in Santa Rosa, except perhaps her own.

She cracked a vial of smelling salts and passed it back and forth beneath his nose. He shuddered, grumbling back to semiconsciousness, and his ice-blue eyes began to roll. With soothing words and firm, insistent hands, she got the patient on his feet, one arm around his shoulders. Staggering beneath his weight, she led him through a narrow door to the adjacent operating room and propped him against the table while she worked the trench coat off his shoulders, down his arms. She tossed the garment toward a chair and missed, surprised by the metallic thud it made on impact with the floor.

She got him on the table, somehow, and he was already fading fast before she had a chance to wash her hands, select the scissors she would need to cut away his blacksuit. The normal antiseptic smell of the clinic was overpowered now by sweat and blood, the stench of violence. Suddenly she realized her hands were trembling.

Who was this man who had intruded on her life? What had he done? What had he suffered? And, above all, did she really want to know?

Grant Vickers checked his watch again and knew the diner would not open for another fifteen minutes. Old man Beamer was as regular as clockwork, pulling up behind his greasy spoon at seven on the dot and spending half an hour in the back, preparing for the day. It took him maybe half that long to fire the grill and put the coffee on, but he would no more deviate from lifelong work habits than he would put on purple pants and dance the monkey, or whatever kids were calling all that shit these days. The old man was an institution, and you didn't screw around with institutions. Not in Santa Rosa, anyhow.

In fifteen minutes he could damn near finish off his rounds, and Vickers put the cruiser back in motion, scanning left and right with all the interest of a drowsy fisherman surveying ripples on a pond. In his seven years as constable, he had become convinced that there was no such thing as crime in Santa Rosa. There were "incidents" from time to time, involving drunkenness or family disputes, but even they were few and far between. There were infractions, mostly violations of the traffic ordinances, and he wrote his share of tickets on assorted smart-ass kids, but otherwise the town was as quiet as a grave.

To Vickers, "crime" meant murder, robbery, or rape. The biggies. Getting drunk at Al's on Saturday and pissing in the gutter might be damned unsightly, but it wasn't anything you jailed a neighbor for. If certain good old boys put down a few too many beers and started teeing off on one another, it was Vickers's job to patch things up, make sure that any damages were settled to the dime before he saw them safely home. The teenagers were smart enough by now to do their stealing or whatever up in Ajo, or the other nearby towns, and Vickers felt that he had taught them all a valuable lesson. You don't shit where you eat.

In seven years, Grant Vickers had not fired a shot, though he packed the big Colt Python with him everywhere, just in case. On one occasion he had used his nightstick; he had broken it, in fact, across the skull of an aggressive drifter who had tried to start some trouble with the good old boys. The prick got ninety days, and Grant had been a hero down at Al's until the story went around and everybody had heard it twice, and then it died away like all things did in Santa Rosa. Still, a week of glory might be all that any man could reasonably count in his life, and for the most part he was satisfied.

Oh, sure, he sometimes wondered what it might be like to pull up stakes and try his luck in Phoenix, even in L.A. At thirty-five they might consider him too old for a police recruit, but his experience would have to count for something. There was real crime in Los Angeles, with murders every day and rapes around the goddamned clock, more robberies and sexual assaults than you could shake a stick at. He would really see some action in Los Angeles.

And in the end, it was the prospect of that action that inevitably made his mind up for him. Proud of what he had achieved in Santa Rosa, Vickers knew that he would be just one more body in Los Angeles... and, frankly, he was never certain he could cut it. It was something else again, with real, live criminals who didn't give a shit about your badge or gun. Forget about the pyschos and the heavy syndicate connections; in L.A., the kids alone would chew you up and spit you out. They killed one another by the dozens, and they weren't afraid to drop a uniform or two, if it came down to that.

The bottom line was fear. Grant Vickers would not say as much — would not admit it, even to himself — but he was desperately afraid — of failure as an officer, of death or injury, of being finally revealed as second-rate, inadequate.

And there was money, too. If Grant left Santa Rosa, he would have to ditch his sideline, and he wasn't one to kick a gift horse in the teeth. All things considered, he would have to say that Santa Rosa met his needs precisely.

If there was anything resembling a sore spot, it was Becky Kent. The more he thought about her recently, the more she got beneath his skin. Not that it seemed to do him any good at all. She had gone out with him a couple of times — to Ajo, for a movie, and to Tucson, for a decent sit-down dinner — but she never let him get out of the batter's box, forget about first base. When he had tried to make a move on their second date, she froze and shied away from him as if he hadn't bathed in a month. There was something in her eyes akin to terror that had stopped him in his tracks and made him stutter an apology before he shook her hand goodnight.