“I told you, no problem. It’s probably good for me to drive around in a flowered car. Builds character. What was that business about the pirate?”

“Oh, that.” Cheryl had smiled. “The doctor gave Mavis a patch to put over Danny’s eye. Naturally, he hates it. I just thought he might leave it on if she tells him he looks like a pirate.”

Jenny had nodded solemnly. “Danny wants to be a pirate when he grows up. He loves airpranes.” Walker and Cheryl had exchanged amused glances over the rims of their coffee cups. “Want to explain?” Walker had done his best to maintain a straight face. Jenny had developed a slight lisp and she was very sensitive about it.

“On the drive to school.” Cheryl had pushed back her chair and stood up. “Any gas in the van?”

“Not much. I was planning on filling it this morning.”

“Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Isn’t that our motto, hon?” She’d given Walker a quick kiss on the forehead. “There’s not much in the bug, either. Come on, Jenny. Give Daddy a kiss and get your coat. We have to leave right now or we won’t make it to school on time.”

He’d still been sitting at the table, drinking the last of his coffee, when he’d heard the explosion. By the time he’d run out the door, his van had been an inferno. The doctor had said they’d died instantly, but that had been small comfort.

For the first few weeks, Walker had been in a state of shock. And when that had worn off, his guts had churned with white-hot anger at the men who’d killed his family. He knew that a man hell-bent on revenge took foolish chances, so he’d waited, and two years later the opportunity had come. His retaliation hadn’t brought Cheryl and Jenny back, but it had been sweet. And then he’d closed the book on his dream for a normal life. A man in his profession had to be a loner.

Walker thought about Ellen as he got off the elevator and walked down the hall. It was a real pity they’d raised questions about Johnny Day, and he was glad that Ellen hadn’t joined in their speculation. He hated to think of what would certainly happen if she started adding up the facts. If there was some way to warn her off, he’d be tempted, but the orders he’d been given were very specific.

In spite of his orders and training, Walker had still gotten personally involved. He’d liked Ellen the first time he’d met her. She was bright and witty, and because she was so totally defensive around men, he’d spent a lot of time trying to bring her around. The turning point had come just a week ago, when he’d found her on a ladder, arranging supplies on her storage shelves. She’d asked him to please give her a hand, so he had. Right out of the box of spare parts.

Ellen had stared at him for a moment and then cracked up. She’d laughed so hard, he’d had to help her down from the ladder and she hadn’t stopped laughing for at least five minutes.

Now she even teased him back occasionally. And she was an absolute master of the pun, Walker’s favorite form of humor. That crack she’d made to Vanessa after he’d given her the bunny slippers had almost finished him off. And as her ability to laugh had grown, so had her trust in him. That had been his real objective. Ellen had to trust him enough to believe the lies he was required to tell her.

Walker smiled. He’d actually talked her into going up to the Jacuzzi with him last night, a step in the right direction. Of course she’d worn a discreet one-piece suit, and over that, a terry-cloth robe. She’d taken it off to jump into the Jacuzzi, but only after asking him to turn off the lights. Even though she had the perfect body for a bikini, Walker knew it would reveal too much of what she thought she had to hide. He’d never met a woman so paranoid around men before, which made his job even more difficult. There were times when Walker felt like marching Ellen over to the mirror, stripping off every stitch of her clothing, and forcing her to look at herself objectively.

Reaching for his key, Walker paused at the door for a moment. Part of him wished that Ellen would be awake again tonight, waiting up for him. No one had cared about what time he came home since Cheryl and Jenny had died. On the other side of the coin, she might get suspicious if she realized that he’d been out two nights in a row. Then she’d start asking questions and that could be very dangerous for her.

Ellen glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty in the morning and Walker was gone again. She sighed and turned back to the eight-month-old issue of Newsweek she’d bought for the article about Justin Holmes, an artist who made life-size dolls in New York. She hadn’t bothered to read the rest of the magazine and now the news was too stale to hold much interest.

Even though she tried not to think about it, Ellen’s mind turned to Vanessa. The thought of anyone trapped in a cold, dark place, bleeding to death all alone, was horrible. Ellen put the magazine back on the table and got up to pace across the floor. She’d give Walker another ten minutes before going up to the spa to look for him. She needed some company tonight to take her mind off the nightmare that had shaken her screaming from her bed, a recurrence of the graveyard dream she’d had last night. The only difference was that tonight’s version had gone on longer.

Again, the hand from the grave had reached up to pull her down, and although she’d dug her fingers into the grass until her hands bled with the effort, it had dragged her down to lie in the damp, cold earth. Then something had embraced her there in the frigid ground, something cold and repulsive and evil. She’d been powerless to resist while it probed and fondled the most intimate recesses of her unwilling body, leaching the warmth from her flesh until she’d been waxen and paralyzed. Then, satisfied, it had given a maniacal shriek. And she had opened her eyes to see two people standing at the edge of the grave, watching her violation. She’d screamed so loud it had jolted her from the awful nightmare, but not before she’d recognized Vanessa and Johnny, laughing down at her.

Now that the dream had run its course, its message was obvious. Her experience with Johnny had been even more traumatic than she’d realized. And even though she’d vowed not to trust any man again, the nightmare still roused its ugly head whenever she’d had a troubling day.

After she’d hired Walker, it had stopped for a while, but now it was back with a vengeance. Was it because she was beginning to rely on Walker? If that was the case, she’d have to be very careful to see it went no further.

Ellen walked across the room and confronted her image, the same old Ellen in the mirror, skinny as a stick and about as alluring as a wet dishrag. At the sound of a key in the lock, she raced back to the couch, picked up the magazine again, and flipped it open. She didn’t want Walker to think she’d been waiting up just for him.

Walker looked startled to see her sitting up, two nights in a row. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t sleep again?”

Ellen shrugged off his question. “I got up to make a sandwich. Then I didn’t feel like going back to bed.”

“Want to go up to the Jacuzzi? It’s beautiful again tonight.” Walker gave her a smile that made her heart beat faster and Ellen smiled back. So that’s where he’d been all this time!

“No, thanks, Walker. My bathing suit’s still damp from last night.”

“Probably for the best. We’d have to be too quiet, anyway. Alan and Laureen are up there, camping out on the lounge chairs. The freezer must have gotten to them.”

“I can understand that! I certainly wouldn’t want to sleep right next to . . .” Ellen stopped and shivered.

“Me neither. How about a walk? It’s not that cold, and the snow’s stopped falling.”

“Great.” Ellen got to her feet. “We’ve been cooped up inside since the avalanche hit. Just let me get my parka.”