Why had he gone there?

Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps it was all madness. He held out his hand and watched the tremor. If he didn’t control himself, they would all know. In the aluminum range hood that he kept clean of grease and grime, as he’d been taught, he saw his distorted reflection. The priest’s collar was white beneath his haggard face. If they saw him now, they would all know. Perhaps that would be best. Then he could rest, rest and forget.

Pain sliced through the base of his skull.

No, he couldn’t rest, he couldn’t forget. Laura needed him to complete his mission so that she could finally find the light. Hadn’t she asked, begged for him to ask God for forgiveness?

Judgment had been quick and harsh for Laura. He’d cursed God, lost his faith, but he’d never forgotten. Now, all these years later, the Voice had come, showing him the way to her salvation. Perhaps she had to die again and again through another lost one, but it was quick, and each time there was absolution. Soon it would be over, for all of them.

Going into the bedroom, he lit the candles. The light flickered on the framed picture of the woman he’d lost, and the women he’d killed. Clipped neatly and lying beneath a black rosary was the newspaper picture of Dr. Teresa Court.

He prayed in Latin, as he’d been taught.

Ben bought her an all-day sucker, swirled with red and yellow. Tess accepted it at the door, gave it a thorough study, then shook her head.

“You know how to keep a woman off balance, Detective. Most men go for chocolate.”

“Too ordinary. Besides, I figured you’d probably be used to the

Swiss kind, and I-“ He broke off, aware that he was going to start rambling if she kept smiling at him over the round hunk of candy. ”You look different.“

“I do? How?”

“Your hairs down.” He wanted to touch it but knew he wasn’t ready. “And you’re not wearing a suit.”

Tess looked down at her wool slacks and oversized sweater. “I don’t usually wear suits to a horror-movie double feature.”

“You don’t look like a psychiatrist anymore.”

“Yes, I do. I just don’t look like your conception of one.” Now he did touch her hair, just a little. She liked the way he did it, in a gesture that was both friendly and cautious.

“You’ve never looked like my conception of one.”

Wanting a moment to align her own thoughts, she set the sucker down on the table beside a Dresden platter, then went to the closet for a jacket. “And what is your conception?”

“Someone pale, thin, and bald.” Hmmm.

The jacket was suede, and soft as butter. He held it for her as she slipped her arms in. “You don’t smell like a psychiatrist either.”

She smiled over her shoulder. “What does a psychiatrist smell like? Or do I want to know?”

“Like peppermint, and English Leather aftershave.”

She turned to face him. “That’s very specific.”

“Yeah. Your hair’s caught.”

He dipped his hand under the collar of her jacket and freed it. He took a step forward, almost without thinking, and had her against the closet door. Her face tilted up, and there was a wariness in her eyes he’d noticed before. She wore little makeup, the sleek, polished look that was so much a part of her image replaced by a warm accessibility a smart man would recognize as dangerous. He knew what he wanted, and was comfortable with the swift rush of desire. The degree of it was another matter. When you wanted too much, too quickly, he thought, it was best to take things slow.

His mouth was close to hers. His hand was still on her hair. “You like butter on your popcorn?”

Tess didn’t know whether to laugh or curse. Deciding to do neither, she told herself she was relaxed. “Tons of it.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to spring for two boxes. It’s cold outside,” he added, leaning away from her. “You’ll need gloves.”

He drew out his own scarred black leather ones before he opened the door.

“I’d forgotten just how frightening those movies were.” It was dark when Tess settled back in his car, sated with pizza and cheap red wine. The air was biting, stinging her cheeks with the first brush of winter before she slid into Ben’s car. Neither the cold nor the media was keeping Washington indoors. The Saturday-night stream of traffic rolled by, on its way to clubs, supper, and parties.

“I’ve always appreciated the way the cop gets the girl in the House of Wax.”

“All Vincent needed was a good analyst,” she said mildly as Ben adjusted the radio.

“Sure, and he’d have dumped you in the vat, coated you with wax, and turned you into…” He turned his head for a narrowed-eyed study. “Helen of Troy, I think.”

“Not bad.” She pursed her lips. “Of course, some psychiatrists might say you chose that, subconsciously linking yourself with Paris.”

“As a cop, I wouldn’t romanticize kidnapping.”

“Pity.” She let her eyes half close, not even aware of how easy it was for her to relax with him. The heater hummed in accompaniment to the moody music from the car radio. She remembered the lyrics and sang them in her head.

“Tired?”

“No, comfortable.” As soon as the words were out, she straightened. “I’ll probably have a few nightmares. Horror movies are a wonderful escape valve for real tensions. I guarantee no one in that theater was thinking about their next insurance payment or acid rain.”

He let out a breezy chuckle as he drove out of the parking lot. “You know, Doc, some people might look at it as simple entertain-ment. It didn’t seem like you were thinking escape valve when you dug holes in my arm when our heroine was running through the fog.”

“It must have been the woman on the other side of you.”

“I was sitting on the aisle.”

“She had a long reach. You missed the turn to my apartment.”

“I didn’t miss it. I didn’t take it. You said you weren’t tired.”

“I’m not.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt more awake, more alive. The song seemed to be playing just under her skin, promising romance and exquisite heartache. She’d always thought the first was somehow incomplete without the second. “Are we going somewhere?”

“A little place I know where the music’s good and they don’t water down the liquor.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’d like that.” She was in the mood for music, something bluesy maybe, with the ache of a tenor sax. “I suppose in a professional capacity you’re well acquainted with the local bars.”

“I’ve got a working knowledge.” He punched in his car lighter. “You’re not the bar type.”

Interested, she faced him. His profile was in shadows, struck intermittently by streetlights. It was funny how sometimes he looked safe, solid, the kind of man a woman might run to if it were dark. Then the light struck his face another way, and the planes and angles were highlighted. A woman might run from him. She shook off the thought. She’d made a policy not to analyze men she dated. Too often you learned more than you wanted to know.

“Is there a type?”

“Yeah.” And he knew them all. “You’re not it. Hotel lounge. Champagne cocktails at the Mayflower or the Hotel Washington.”

“Now who’s doing psychological profiles, Detective?”

“You’ve got to be able to type people in my business, Doc.” He pulled up and maneuvered into a space between a Honda three-wheeler and a Chevette hatchback. Before he turned off the key, he wondered if he was making a mistake.

“What’s this?”

“This.” He pulled out the keys but left them jingling in his hand. “Is where I live.”

She looked out the window at a four-story apartment building with faded red brick and green awnings. “Oh.”

“I don’t have any champagne.”