"I'm not. I'm just tying my shoe."

"Well, I don't believe that you're just here to work this job."

"Believe what you want," I said. I picked up the bottle of spray cleaner and the paper towels and went over to the nearest mirror to begin my cleaning round. I glanced at Linda's reflection while I worked, and when I saw her expression I knew that she really hated me. I didn't particularly care, but it would have cleared the air if I'd been able to tell her why I'd really been hired. Mel Brentwood had been clear about that point, though. He wanted me to remain just an occasional employee to the staff at Body Time.

One of the regular clients, Jay Scarlatti, a tall, lean, bony man, had taken a shine to me. He came in every morning after his run to lift some weights; afterward, he'd shower and go to work in a suit his wife had brought in the afternoon before.

Jay was interested in me physically. He had no idea what my character was like. Today, as always, he saw the body in the unitard and not the person who was wearing it.

"Hello, you beautiful thing," he said this morning, coming up behind me while I was spraying the upholstery of one of the weight benches. "How are you today?"

I wasn't supposed to beat on the customers, so I replied mildly that I was fine, and I hoped he was well.

"And Mrs. Scarlatti?" I asked.

"Katy's fine," he said stiffly.

"That's good. She seems like such a nice lady, when she brings in your clothes in the afternoon. It's really too bad you never have time to do that yourself."

Jay Scarlatti was scowling.

"Being a little emphatic, aren't you?" he asked, biting the words out.

"Seems like I need to. Are you going to try calisthenics today?"

He looked startled. "Sure, I guess so."

"Then let's get into line."

I stowed away my cleaning things, blew my whistle, and collected a small crowd right away. Linda and Byron got in line, too, since I'd told Byron he might have to lead this exercise when I was off.

"You'll see," said a young muscle-builder to his pal. "This is gonna make you sore in places you didn't even know you had muscles." He looked excited at the prospect.

So we began, and the first time I asked them to touch the floor right in front of their toes, I heard a chorus of groans and cracking joints. But gradually they improved, and since I'd insisted on discipline from the beginning, I heard no complaints. Linda and Byron were red and panting, but they made it through the rest of the class.

Now that I wasn't watching for a thief, I actually enjoyed being in the gym all day. And I was so thankful not to be loitering in Beth Crider's neighborhood that I was extra friendly all day.

Jack had thought he'd get home about ten, so I left some food out on a microwavable plate for him. I got ready for bed and read for a while, then heard the familiar snick of the key in the lock of the front door.

While Jack ate and brushed his teeth, I kept him company. He talked a little about the boy he'd found, about how halfway home the boy had decided he felt a little better and wanted to go back to the streets. He and Jack had had some conversation, and the boy had decided to stick to his original plan.

"What did you say to him to persuade him?" I asked.

"I just told him I'd carry him home, kicking and screaming if necessary. When he told me I wasn't capable of that, I pinched a nerve in his neck for a minute."

"I bet that shut him up."

"That, and me telling him I'd found and shipped plenty of runaways—just like him—home in coffins. And they never came back from that."

"You've seen a lot of runaways."

"Yeah. Starting back when I was a cop, I've seen way too many. The ones like him, the ones that started selling their butts, didn't last three years. Sickness, or a client, or self-disgust, or drugs... mostly drugs."

Every time Jack tracked a runaway, he went through a spell of depression; because the fact was, the kid often ran off again. Whatever grievance had led a child to leave home was seldom erased by life on the streets. Sometimes the grievance was legitimate; abuse, mental or physical. Sometimes it was based on teen angst; parents who "just didn't understand."

Catching a runaway often led to repeat business, but it wasn't business Jack relished. He'd rather detect a thieving employee or catch someone cheating on a disability claim any day.

"Did you get a chance to call anyone about the new detective here?" I asked, as Jack slid into bed.

"Not yet. Tomorrow," he said, half asleep already. His lips moved against my cheek in a sketchy kiss. "Everything tomorrow," he promised, and before I switched off the lamp by the bed, he was out.

The next morning when I returned from cleaning Carrie's office, Jack was in the shower. He'd already worked out, I saw from the pile of clothes on the floor. Jack didn't believe in picking up as he went, a tenet that my mother had instilled in me when I was knee-high. I took a deep breath and left his clothes where he'd dropped them.

When he came out of the steamy little bathroom fifteen minutes later, vigorously toweling his hair, I was working on a grocery list at the kitchen table. He was well worth the wait. I sighed when Jack pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and began to brush through his long hair.

"When I got up, I called this woman I know on the force in Memphis, and she knew someone on the job in Cleveland," Jack said.

"And?" I said impatiently, as he paused to work through a tangle.

"According to this detective in Ohio, Alicia Stokes was a rising star in the office. Her clearance rate was spectacular, she handled community appearances well, and she was on the fast track for promotion. Then she got involved in a case she couldn't solve and it all kind of fell apart." Jack frowned at the amount of hair that came off in his brush.

"What was the case?"

"One she wasn't even the primary on," Jack muttered, still preoccupied by his hair loss. "That is, she wasn't the detective in charge. She did some of the related interviews, that's all. No one knows what set her off the deep end about this case. Which," he added, seeing the exasperation on my face, "involved a woman who was being stalked."

I felt a deep twinge of apprehension. "Okay. What exactly happened?"

"I heard this secondhand, remember, and I don't know how well my friend's source actually knew Detective Stokes."

I nodded, so he'd know I'd registered the disclaimer.

"In Cleveland, this woman was getting threatening letters. Stuff was being nailed to her door, her house got broken into, she got phone calls, her purse got stolen three times, her car was vandalized... everything happened to this poor gal. Some of it was just annoying, but some of it was more serious, and all of it was scary when you added it up."

"What about the police?"

"They were onto it right away. But they couldn't catch anyone. This guy, who was like Stokes's mentor, was the primary, and he pulled her in to do some of the questioning of neighbors—had they seen someone they didn't know hanging around the neighborhood? Which of the neighbors had been home when the incidents happened? You know the kind of thing."

"So she got wrapped up in it, I gather?"

"More so than was healthy. She began to spend her off time watching the house, trying like hell to catch the guy. She was so furious about what was happening to this woman ..."

"I can understand why." How would it feel to think that someone was watching your every move? Someone was waiting for you to be alone, your fear his only goal.

And that someone was able to get away with it. The police couldn't stop him; the officers who had sworn to protect you couldn't do their job. Despite everything, he would get you eventually.