"You're married?"

"Well… yeah. I thought you knew."

"No." Her facial muscles felt stiff and inflexible. "You have failed to mention a Mrs. Marcus."

"Because my marriage has nothing to do with you, with us. It hasn't been a real marriage for a long time. Once

I've explained my situation at home to you, you'll understand."

"You're married." This time it was a statement, not a question.

"Tiel, listen-"

"No, no, I'm not going to listen, Joseph. What I'm going to do is hang up on you, you son of a bitch."

The telephone receiver she had been so reluctant even to touch ten minutes earlier she now clung to long after replacing it on the hook. She leaned against the pay phone, her forehead pressing hard against the perforated metal while her hands maintained their grip on the greasy receiver.

Married. He had seemed too good to be true, and he was. Good-looking, charming, friendly, witty, athletic, successful, and financially secure Joseph Marcus was married.

If not for an airline ticket she would have had an affair with a married man.

She swallowed a surge of nausea and took another moment to compose herself. Later she would lick her wounded ego, berate herself for being such a Pollyanna, and curse him to hell and back. But right now she had work to do.

Joseph's revelation had left her reeling with disbelief.

She was furious beyond measure. She was terribly hurt, but more than anything she was embarrassed by her gullibility.

All the more reason she was not about to let the bastard affect her work performance.

Work was her panacea, her life support. When she was happy, she worked. Sad, she worked. Sick, she worked.

Work was the cure for all her ills. Work was the remedy for everything… even heartbreak so profound you thought you'd die.

She knew that firsthand.

She gathered up her pride, along with her notes on the Dendy story and Gully's directions to Hera, Texas, and ordered herself to mobilize.

Compared to the dimness of the hallway, the fluorescent lighting in the store seemed inordinately bright. The cowboy had left. The elderly couple were browsing through the array of magazines. The two Spanish-speaking men were eating their burritos and talking quietly together.

Tiel sensed their smoldering gazes as she went past them on her way to the refrigerated cabinets. One said something to the other that caused him to snicker. It was easy to guess the nature of the comment. Thankfully, her Spanish was rusty.

She slid open the door to the refrigerator and selected a six-pack of high-voltage cola for the road. From a rack of snack food she chose a package of sunflower seeds. During college she had discovered that cracking open the salty seeds in order to get to the kernel inside was a good manual exercise to keep one awake while studying. Hopefully it would translate to night driving as well.

She debated whether or not to buy a bag of chocolate-covered caramels. Just because a man she had been dating for weeks had turned out to be a married shit-heel didn't mean she should use that as an excuse to binge. On the other hand, if ever she deserved a treat- The security camera in the corner of the ceiling virtually exploded, sending pieces of glass and metal flying.

Instinctively Tiel recoiled from the deafening noise.

But the camera hadn't exploded on its own. A young man had entered the store and fired a pistol at it. The gunman then aimed his weapon at the cashier, who screeched a high note before the sound seemed to freeze inside her throat.

"This is a holdup," he said melodramatically, and somewhat needlessly, since it was apparent what it was.

To the young woman who had accompanied him into the store, he said, "Sabra, watch the others. If anyone moves, warn me."

"Okay, Ronnie."

Well, I might die, Tiel thought. But at least I'll get my story.

And she wouldn't be going to Hera to get it. It had come to her.

You!" ronnie davison pointed the pistol at Tiel.

"Come over here. Lie down on the floor." Incapable of moving, she only gaped at him. "Now!"

Dropping her package of sunflower seeds and the six-pack of sodas, she scrambled over to the indicated spot and lay facedown as instructed. Now that her initial shock had worn off, she bit her tongue to keep from asking him why he was compounding a kidnaping with an armed robbery.

But she doubted that at this moment the young man would be receptive to questions. Besides, until she knew what he had planned for her and the other eyewitnesses, perhaps she shouldn't reveal that she was a reporter and knew his and his accomplice's identities.

"Get over here and lie down," he ordered the elderly couple. "You two." He pointed the gun at the Mexican men. "Now! Move it!"

The old people complied without argument. The Mexican men remained where they were. "I'll shoot you if you don't get over here!" Ronnie shouted.

Keeping her head down and addressing her words to the floor, Tiel said, "They don't speak English."

"Shut up!"

Ronnie Davison broke the language barrier and made himself understood by motioning with the pistol. Moving slowly, reluctantly, the men joined Tiel and the elderly couple on the floor.

"Put your hands behind your head."

Tiel and the others did as he asked.

Over the years, Tiel had covered dozens of news stories wherein innocent bystanders, who had become eyewitnesses to a crime, were all too often found at the scene, lying facedown, dead, one gunshot to the back of the head, executed for no other reason except that they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was this to be how her life ended?

Strangely, she wasn't so much afraid as angry. She hadn't done everything she wanted to do! Snowboarding looked like a real kick, but she hadn't had time to try it.

Correction: She hadn't taken time to try it. She'd never toured the Napa Valley. She wanted to see Paris again, not as a high school student under strict supervision, but on her own, free to meander the boulevards at will.

There were goals she had yet to reach. Think of the stories she would miss covering if her life ended now. Nine Live would go to Linda Harper by default, and that was so unfair.

And not all her dreams were career-oriented. She and other single friends joked about their biological clocks, but in private she anguished over its incessant tick. If she died tonight, having a child would be just one of many dreams left unfulfilled.

Then there was the other thing. The big thing. The powerful guilt that fueled her ambition. She hadn't done enough yet to make up for that. She hadn't yet atoned for harsh words spoken angrily and flippantly, which, tragically, had been prophetic. She must live to make restitution for that.

She held her breath, waiting for death.

But Davison's attention was on something else. "You, in the corner," the young man shouted. "Now! Or I'll kill the old folks. It's up to you."

Tiel raised her head only high enough to glance into the fish-eye mirror mounted in the corner at the ceiling.

Her assumption had been wrong. The cowboy hadn't left.

In the mirror, she watched him calmly replace a paperback novel in its slot on the revolving rack. As he sauntered down the aisle, he removed his hat and set it on top of a shelf. Tiel experienced a flurry of recognition, but she attributed it to having seen him before when he came into the store.

The eyes he kept trained on Ronnie Davison had a tracery of fine lines at the corners. Unsmiling lips. The face said Don't mess with me, and Ronnie Davison read it well.