He smiled and put his arms around me, not caring that his hands were wet. 'Can we sit and talk for a while?' he said, his face, his body close to mine. 'Then I've got to hit the road.'

'And after that?'

'I'm going to talk to Marino in the morning, and in the afternoon I've got another case coming in. From Arizona. I know it's Sunday, but it can't wait.'

He continued talking as we carried our wine into the great room.

'A twelve-year-old girl abducted on her way home from school, body dumped in the

Sonora desert,' he said. 'We think this guy's already killed three other kids.'

'It's hard to feel very optimistic, isn't it,' I said bitterly as we sat on the couch. 'It never stops.'

'No,' he replied. 'And I'm afraid it never will. As long as there are people on the planet. What are you going to do with what's left of the weekend?'

'Paperwork.'

One side of my great room was sliding glass doors, and beyond, my neighborhood was black with a full moon that looked like gold, clouds gauzy and drifting.

'Why are you so angry with me?' His voice was gentle, but he let me know his hurt.

'I don't know.' I would not look at him.

'You do know.' He took my hand and began to rub it with his thumb. 'I love your hands. They look like a pianist's, only stronger. As if what you do is an art.'

'It is,' I simply said, and he often talked about my hands. 'I think you have a fetish. As a profiler, that should concern you.'

He laughed, kissing knuckles, fingers, the way he often did. 'Believe me, I have a fetish for more than your hands.'

'Benton.' I looked at him. 'I am angry with you because you are ruining my life.' He got very still, shocked.

I got up from the couch and began to pace. 'I had my life set up just the way I wanted it,' I said as emotions rose to a crescendo. 'I am building a new office. Yes, I've been smart with my money, made enough smart investments to afford this.' I swept my hand over my room. 'My own house that I designed. For me, everything was in its proper place until you…'

'Was it?' He was watching me intensely, wounded anger in his voice. 'You liked it better when I was married and we were always feeling rotten about it? When we were having an affair and lying to everyone?'

'Of course I didn't like that better!' I exclaimed. 'I just liked my life being mine.'

'Your problem is you're afraid of commitment. That's what this is about. How many times do I have to point that out? I think you should see someone. Really. Maybe Dr Zenner. You're friends. I know you trust her.'

'I'm not the one who needs a psychiatrist.' I regretted the words the instant I said them. He angrily got up, as if ready to leave. It was not even nine o'clock.

'God. I'm too old and tired for this,' I muttered. 'Benton, I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. Please sit back down.'

He didn't at first, but stood in front of sliding glass doors, his back to me.

'I'm not trying to hurt you, Kay,' he said. 'I don't come around to see how badly I can fuck up your life, you know. I admire the hell out of everything you do. I just wish you'd let me in a little bit more.'

'I know. I'm sorry. Please don't leave.'

Blinking back tears, I sat down and stared up at the ceiling with its exposed beams and trowel marks visible on plaster. Wherever I looked there were details that had come from me. For a moment, I shut my eyes as tears rolled down my face. I did not

wipe them away and Wesley knew when not to touch me. He knew when not to speak. He quietly sat beside me.

'I'm a middle-aged woman set in her ways,' I said as my voice shook. 'I can't help it. All I have is what I've built. No children. I can't stand my only sister and she can't stand me. My father was in bed dying my entire childhood, then gone when I was twelve. Mother's impossible, and now she's dying of emphysema. I can't be what you want, the good wife. I don't even know what the hell that is. I only know how to be Kay. And going to a psychiatrist isn't going to change a goddamn thing.'

He said to me, 'And I'm in love with you and want to marry you. And I can't seem to help that, either.'

I did not reply.

He added, 'And I thought you were in love with me.' Still, I could not speak.

'At least you used to be,' he went on as pain overwhelmed his voice. 'I'm leaving.' He started to get up again, and I put my hand on his arm.

'Not like this.' I looked at him. 'Don't do this to me.'

'To you?' He was incredulous.

I dimmed the lights until they were almost out, and the moon was a polished coin against a clear black sky scattered with stars. I got more wine and started the fire, while he watched everything I did.

'Sit closer to me,' I said.

He did, and I took his hands this time.

'Benton, patience. Don't rush me,' I said. 'Please. I'm not like Connie. Like other people.'

'I'm not asking you to be,' he said. 'I don't want you to be. I'm not like other people, either. We know what we see. Other people couldn't possibly understand. I could never talk to Connie about how I spend my days. But I can talk to you.'

He kissed me sweetly, and we went deeper, touching faces, tongues and nimbly undressing, doing what we once did best. He gathered me in his mouth and hands, and we stayed on the couch until early morning, as light from the moon turned chilled and thin. After he drove home, I carried wine throughout my house, pacing, wandering with music on and flowing out speakers in every room. I landed in my office, where I was a master at distraction.

I began going through journals, tearing out articles that needed to be filed. I began working on an article I was due to write. But I was not in the mood for any of it, and decided to check my e-mail to see if Lucy had left word about when she might make

it to Richmond. AOL announced I had mail waiting, and when I checked my box I felt as if someone had struck me. The address deadoc awaited me like an evil stranger.

His message was in lowercase, with no punctuation except spaces. It said, you think you re so smart. I opened the attached file and once again watched color images paint down my screen, severed feet and hands lined up on a table covered with what appeared to be the same bluish cloth. For a while I stared, wondering why this person was doing this to me. I hoped he had just made a very big mistake as I grabbed the phone.

'Marino!' I exclaimed when I got him on the line.

'Huh? What happened?' he blurted as he came to. I told him.

'Shit. It's three friggin' o'clock in the morning. Don't you ever sleep?'

He seemed pleased, and I suspected he figured I wouldn't have called him if Wesley had still been here.

'Are you okay?' he then asked.

'Listen. The hands are palm up,' I said. 'The photograph was taken at close range. I

can see a lot of detail.'

'Like what kind of detail? Is there a tattoo or something?'

' Ridge detail,' I said.

Neils Vander was the section chief of fingerprint examination, an older man with wispy hair and voluminous lab coats perpetually stained purple and black with

ninhydrin and dusting powder. Forever in a hurry and prepossessed, he was from genteel Virginia stock. Vander had never called me by my first name or referred to anything personal about me in all the years I had known him. But he had his way of showing he cared. Sometimes it was a doughnut on my desk in the morning or, in the summer, Hanover tomatoes from his garden.

Known for an eagle eye that could match loops and whorls at a glance, he was also the resident expert in image enhancement and, in fact, had been trained by NASA.

Over the years, he and I had materialized a multitude of faces from photographic blurs. We had conjured up writing that wasn't there, read impressions and restored eradications, the concept really very simple even if the execution of it was not.