She sneaked a glance sideways and saw that he'd already turned his gaze back to the road ahead.

"There," he said. "Take the next turnoff. It's eight miles north."

The road took them out of midtown Albion, into a district of industrial parks and corporate headquarters. In the last ten years, many of the buildings had gone vacant; dark windows and For Lease signs had sprung up everywhere. Albion, like the rest of the country, was struggling.

The Cygnus complex was one of the few that appeared to house a thriving corporation. Even at eight o'clock at night, some of the windows were still lit, and there were a dozen cars in the parking lot. They drove past the security booth and pulled into a stall marked Quantrell.

"Your people work late," said M. J., glancing at the parked cars.

"The evening shift," said Adam. "We run a twenty-four-hour diagnostic lab. Plus, some of our research people like to keep odd hours. You know how it is with eggheads. They have their own schedules."

"A flexible company."

"We have to be, if we want to keep good minds around."

They walked to the front door, where Adam pressed a few numbers on a wall keypad and the lock snapped open. Inside, they headed down a brightly lit hallway. No smudged walls, no flickering fluorescent bulbs here; only the best for corporate America.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Diagnostics. I'm going to prove to you we're not engaged in a cover-up."

"Just how are you going to do that?"

"I'm going to personally hand over to you Xenia Vargas's toxicology screen."

The diagnostics lab was a vast chamber of space-age equipment, manned by a half-dozen technicians. The evening supervisor, a grandmotherly type in a lab coat, immediately came to greet them.

"Don't worry, Grace," said Adam. "This isn't a surprise inspection."

"Thank God," said Grace with a laugh. "We just hid the beer keg and the dancing girls. So what can I do for you, Mr. Q.?"

"This is Dr. Novak, ME's office. She wants to check on a tox screen sent here from the state."

"What's the name?"

"Xenia Vargas," said M. J.

Grace sat down at a computer terminal and typed in the name. "Here it is. Logged in just this afternoon. It's not checked priority, so we haven't run it yet."

"Could you run it now?" asked Adam.

"It'll take some time."

Adam glanced at M. J. She nodded. "We'll wait," he said. Grace called to another tech: "Val, can you checkthat box of requests from the state? We're going to run a STAT on Xenia Vargas." She looked at Adam. "Are you sure you want to hang around, Mr. Q.? This is going to be real boring."

"We'll be up in my office," said Adam. "Call us there."

"Okie doke. But if I was dressed like that-" She nodded at their evening clothes. "I'd be out dancing."

Adam smiled. "We'll keep it in mind."

By the time they reached Adam's office, which was upstairs and down a long corridor, M. J.'s sore feet were staging a protest against high heels and she was silently cursing every cobbler in Italy. The minute she hobbled through the office door, she pulled off her shoes, and her stockinged feet sank into velvety carpet. Nice. Plush. Slowly she gazed around the room, impressed by her surroundings. It wasn't just an office; it was more like a second home, with a couch and chairs, bookshelves, a small refrigerator.

"I was wondering how long you'd last in those shoes," Adam said with a laugh.

"When Grace mentioned dancing, I felt like crying." She sat down gratefully on the couch. "I confess, I'm the socks and sneakers type."

"What a shame. You look good in heels."

"My feet would beg to differ." Groaning, she reached down and began to massage her instep.

"What your feet need," he said, "is a little pampering." He sat down beside her on the couch and patted his lap in invitation. "Allow me."

"Allow you to what?"

"Make up for that long walk down that long hallway."

Laughing, she rose from the couch. "It won't work, Quantrell. It takes more than a foot rub to soften up my brain."

He gave a sigh of disappointment. "She doesn't trust me."

"Don't take it personally. When it comes to men, I'm just an old skeptic."

"Ah. Deep-rooted fears. An unreliable father?"

"I didn't have a father." She wandered over to the bookcase, made a slow survey of the spines. An eclectic collection, she noted, arranged in no particular order. Philosophy and physics. Fiction and pharmacology. Over the bookcase hung several framed diplomas, strictly Ivy League.

"So what happened to your father?" he asked.

"I wouldn't know." She turned and looked at him. "I don't even know his last name."

Adam's eyebrow twitched up in surprise. That was his only reaction, but it was a telling one.

"I know he had light brown hair. Green eyes," said M. J. "I know he drove a nice car. And he had money, which was what my mother desperately needed at the time. So…" She smiled. "Here I am. Green eyes and all."

She expected to see shock, perhaps pity in his gaze, but these was neither. The look he gave her was one of utter neutrality.

"So you see," she said, "I'm not exactly to the manner born. Though my mother used to claim she had noble Spanish blood. But then, Mama said a lot of crazy things toward the end."

"Then she's…" He paused delicately.

"Dead. Seven years."

He tilted up his head, the next question plain in his eyes.

"Mama would say these really bizarre things," explained M. J. "And she'd get headaches every morning. I was in my last year of medical school. I was the one who diagnosed the brain tumor."

Adam shook his head. "That must have been terrible."

"It wasn't the diagnosis that was so wrenching. It was the part afterwards. Waiting for the end. I spent a lot of time at Hancock General. Learned to royally despise the place. Found out I couldn't stand being around sick people." She shook her head and laughed. "Imagine that."

"So you chose the morgue."

"It's quiet. It's contained."

"A hiding place."

Anger darted through her, but she suppressed it. After all, what he'd said was true. The morgue was a hiding place, from all those painfully sloppy emotions one found in a hospital ward.

She said, simply, "It suits me," and turned away. Her gaze settled on the refrigerator. "You wouldn't happen to have anything edible in there, would you?" she asked. "The wine's going straight to my head."

He rose from the couch and went to the refrigerator. "I usually stock a sandwich or two, for those impromptu lunch meetings. Here we are." He produced two plastic-wrapped luncheon plates. "Let's see. Roast beef or… roast beef. What a choice." Apologetically he handed her a plate. "Afraid it can't match up to the mayor's benefit supper."

"That's all right. I didn't pay for my ticket anyway."

He smiled. "Neither did I."

"Oh?"

"It was Isabel's ticket. She's a big fan of Mayor Sampson."

"I can't imagine why." M. J. unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. "I think he's Albion's Titanic."

"How so?"

"Just look at South Lexington. Sampson would like to pretend it doesn't exist. He caters entirely to the more suburban areas. Bellemeade and beyond. The inner city? Forget it. He doesn't want to hear about the Jane Does and Nicos Biagis." She went back to the couch and sat down, tucking her stockinged feet beneath her.

He sat down as well. Not too close, she noted with a mingling of both relief and disappointment, but sedately apart, like any courteous host.

"To be honest," he admitted, "I'm not a fan of Sampson's either. But Isabel needed an escort."

"And you didn't have any better offers for the evening?"

"No." He picked up a slice of beef, and his straight white teeth bit neatly into the pink meat. "Not until you turned up."