“I’ll opt for the caffeine, thanks.”

He turned to Frank. “You doin’ okay there, buddy?”

“Fine, Mike, thanks.”

He started to walk off when Pete said, “Aren’t you forgetting somebody?”

Sorenson stopped at the kitchen door and turned around, saying, “Why, yes, I believe I am.” He flipped Pete the bird. Pete returned the favor with a gesture of his own.

Pete turned to Frank. “You supposed to watch him, or is he supposed to watch you?”

“Baird, you are a professional pain in his ass and you know it.”

Pete laughed. “He makes it so easy.”

Sorenson came out with a glass of Coke and ice, and sat down in a chair next to my end of the couch. Pete, giving up on being waited upon, went in to get a beer. He came back out and sat in a chair opposite Sorenson, near Frank. He lifted the beer toward Sorenson and said, “Thanks, pal.”

“It was nothing,” Sorenson said.

“So bring me up-to-date,” Frank said. “I read about what happened in front of the bank yesterday.” He looked over at me. “You didn’t tell me, Irene,” he chided.

“Sorry, Frank. You weren’t feeling so hot and I was tired of thinking about it all.”

“What happened in Gila Bend?”

Pete jumped in and told the story of our day in Arizona. As I was reminded of it, I could feel myself getting depressed, ebbing away from the excitement of seeing Frank doing so well and back into a sense of numbness. Pete was quite animated in his telling; but I felt myself becoming more withdrawn as he went on. By the time he got to the Tannehill part of the story, all I could see before me was Elaine Tannehill’s last moments replayed again and again.

“Irene?” I vaguely heard Frank next to me and turned toward him. I tried a smile, but couldn’t manage it.

“Mike,” Frank said to Sorenson, “why don’t you and Pete take a walk on the beach?”

I thought we were in for more banter, but he just said, “Sure. Let’s go, Pete.” And the two of them left without another word.

When they were gone, Frank patted the place next to him on the couch. “Scoot over here,” he said.

I moved over.

He put an arm around me and I gingerly put my head on his shoulder, trying to avoid his ribs.

“The ribs aren’t so bad,” he said, reading my intentions. “It’s the other side anyway.”

I relaxed a little. He didn’t say anything for a long while, just stroked my hair and held me.

“You must feel like your whole life has been turned upside down,” he said quietly. “But it won’t stay like this. Just keep telling yourself that. You’ve got to keep being a fighter, Irene. Don’t let it beat you.”

“I feel like it already has, Frank.”

He reached over and took my hand. He ran his thumb gently along the backs of my fingers, not saying anything more

I looked up at him. “I’ll be okay,” I said, and put my head back down on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Right now,” he said with a grin, “I feel pretty damn good.”

This mood was broken when we heard the front door open and Pete and Mike Sorenson came trooping back in.

“Uh-oh,” Pete said, looking at us, “I told you we would interrupt something.”

“Sorry, Frank,” Sorenson said, “but I was freezing my nuts off out there.”

“Hey, look,” said Pete, “why don’t Mike and I go out for a bite to eat or something?”

“Never mind, Pete,” I said, “I need to be getting home. And I’m sure the Unsinkable Frank Harriman here could use some rest, too. Not to mention that Officer Sorenson is supposed to be keeping an eye on him. Okay if I come back tomorrow afternoon, Frank?”

“Sure,” he said, “I’m probably not going into work until Monday.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” I said.

“No problem. Take care of yourself.”

We said our good-byes and Pete took me over to Lydia’s. The house was dark when we pulled up. I had forgotten that she would be off on her big date.

“You gonna be here alone?” Pete asked, sounding a little worried.

“I’ll be okay. There’s a ferocious cat in there.”

“Yeah, that cat’s kind of famous in the department. We gave Frank hell about those scratches.”

“Well, then you know I’m safe. Thanks for everything, Pete.”

“See you later, Irene. I’ll just wait out here for a while.”

“I’m okay, really. If you’re going to wait around until Lydia comes in, you may have a long wait. Might as well come in.”

He shrugged. “Tell you what. Could I use your phone?”

As we walked in, Cody bit me on the ankle and then ran off down the hallway, apparently unhappy about having been abandoned. Pete called in to the department and arranged for a patrol car to make a few extra passes down our street.

“So long, Irene,” he said as he walked out.

I locked up and climbed into bed. Cody joined me a few minutes later, acting as if nothing had happened. I pulled back the bedroom-window curtain and wasn’t entirely surprised to see Pete still sitting out in his car at the curb.

I knew he was tired, but he wasn’t going to break his pledge to Frank to watch over me.

I lay awake a long time, petting Cody, listening to him purr. “Cat, you miss me?” I asked him. He gave me a sandpaper kiss. I heard Lydia come in, but didn’t get up to talk to her-I was afraid she’d think I’d stayed up waiting for her. I heard Pete’s car drive off, and still I couldn’t sleep. I decided to think of some pleasant memory. I put myself back on my grandmother’s farm in Kansas. I was standing in a wheat field, watching the wind move the wheat in undulating waves of gold. Somehow the memory became a dream, and I was dancing through the wheat, feeling it brush against me while I held my face to the sun. I held my arms out to its warmth and whirled in slow, lazy circles, laughing as I turned. My grandmother, still alive in the dream, called to me, and I ran to her. I felt her soft apron and the smell of cinnamon as she hugged me with her thin old arms, and she said, “Child, what am I going to do with you?”

I woke up feeling fine.

HMM-SOMETHING SMELLS GREAT. You making breakfast?” Lydia called out to me as she made her way to the kitchen.

“Yeah, cinnamon toast. Here, have some.”

“You always cut it up in little strips like this?”

“My grandmother did. I had a dream about her last night.”

“I haven’t had this in ages.”

“Me neither.” I sat down next to her, dishing out some scrambled eggs and bacon. “A country breakfast. Hardens your arteries, but we’ve all got to live on the edge sometimes.”

“This is great, Irene.”

“Thanks. How was the date with Michael?”

“Eh.”

“‘Eh’?”

“There was all this animal magnetism between us, but we couldn’t make much conversation. We just didn’t have anything much to talk about. We saw a movie, or it would have been the longest evening of my life. After the movie, it was either make out all night or come home alone and get a good night’s sleep. God knows I’ve been horny lately, but this is the nineties, not our college days, so Michael and I left it at a goodnight kiss.”

“You went that far on a first date?” I said with mock horror.

“First and last, I’m afraid,” she said, shoving the morning edition toward me. “You see the paper yet? People are going to get jealous.”

Good old John Walters had given me another page one. The story of Jennifer Owens was as public as it was going to be.

There were a pile of messages and O’Connor’s mail waiting for me at work. The mail made me think of the second envelope from Wednesday, which I had completely forgotten. I opened my purse and found it.

It contained a note from MacPherson dated last week, saying he had found someone to do the computer drawings of the woman’s face, and he would call when they were ready. I felt a great sense of relief. I hadn’t been walking around for two days with some big clue stashed in my purse.