"Thanks." She couldn't seem to look away from him. "But I don't need your help. I do very well on my own."

"On your own. I notice you don't mention Quinn."

"I'm an independent woman. Joe is not my keeper."

He didn't answer. He just sat there looking at her.

"Stop it. This conversation is absurd."

"Are you afraid I'm hitting too close?" He leaned forward. "Darkness doesn't have to be terrifying, Eve. There are all kinds of wonderful things that happen at night. It's the time when most births occur. Everything appears sharper, more exciting. Yet it blurs reality and makes it bearable." He paused. "And it's the time for passion."

He was sitting there relaxed in the easy chair with the light from the lamp pooling over him. He was talking about darkness yet the warm glow of life seemed to surround him. The intimacy in the room was almost unbearable in intensity. She had a sudden impulse to reach out and touch him.

"No." He was reading her expression. "I feel the same way but it's better that we wait. I want you, but I want you with no regrets."

Shock rippled through her. Jesus, she had been feeling, not thinking. She tore her gaze away from him. "It's not you. I'm always at an emotional high at this point in a reconstruction."

"I see." He smiled faintly. "Remind me to be sure to be around whenever you reach that point. It appears to be eminently rewarding."

"And there would be regrets. I don't do one-night stands."

"Do you think I don't know that? That's one of the problems. It would be much simpler if you could compartmentalize."

"As you seem to be doing."

"I only live in the past part of the time. Sometimes something so good comes along that you have to stop and let it happen." His smile faded. "And I don't mean sex. Sex can be had anywhere. The moment I started studying you I realized that you were going to be something special in my life."

She nodded. "I was going to be the woman who brought your wife home."

"Yes. Was that a slap on the knuckles? I loved my wife. I'll probably love her for the rest of my life. She was joy. The first love of my life. Before Nalia there were only sexual encounters. She taught me the difference. Nalia would be the first to tell me to find that joy wherever I could. What are you going to be in my life? I don't know. But I want to find out. I have an idea it could be earthshaking." He stood up. "I'll leave you now. You did quite a good job with that meal. Though I imagine you didn't even realize you were eating it. May I still come back while you're working on Nalia?"

"As I told you, I probably won't even know you're in the room."

"The ultimate insult for a man. Yet I wouldn't have it any other way." He headed for the door. "Bring her home and I might someday find that sunlight we were talking about."

"Montalvo." When he looked over his shoulder she said, "I love Joe. Whatever I feel for anyone else, that won't change."

"I know. But there are always degrees of feeling. Sometimes emotion changes from moment to moment, hour to hour, year to year. If I haven't learned anything else in these last years, I've acquired patience. We'll see how it goes." He left before she could reply.

Bizarre. Those last moments had been like something from an opium dream. Hazy, soft-focused, sensual, and yet with flashes of hard reality and truth. Darkness and sunlight.

Was he right? Could it be the reason she had been drifting away from Joe was because he wasn't part of the darkness? He lacked that final understanding that no one but someone who had experienced that loss would have.

She didn't know, she thought wearily, as she rose to her feet. Maybe she was just as damaged as she'd told Joe. Perhaps she was tired of having him suffer for her sake. Maybe she was looking for a way to free him.

And maybe she was lusting after that sexy son of a bitch who had all the appeal of the new and the mysterious. He was like the Phantom of the Opera with all his talk of darkness. He was the Beast who lured Beauty back to his castle. He was a challenge to be met. An experience to be tasted.

And a betrayal to be enacted.

It wasn't going to happen.

She moved across the room to stand before the reconstruction. "I can see why you took him as your lover, Nalia. He's pretty hot stuff. He says you taught him joy. I hope you found it too." She began to smooth the line of the cheek. "It's time to start. Are you ready? Let's bring you home…"

Smooth. Pat.

A little deeper indentation around the lips. Smooth.

Forehead broader. Smooth. Carve. Help me, Nalia.

Her fingers were working feverishly now.

Smooth.

Carve.

Sweep the cheekbones higher.

The mouth.

Always difficult. Sometimes impossible because there were no visible clues.

Tell me.

Skip it. Come back to it.

The mid-therum area.

Carve.

Smooth.

Get it right. For God's sake, get it right.

No, for Nalia's sake. For all her pain and desolation. Come home, Nalia.

Smooth.

Go back to the mouth.

Easier now.

Her fingers flew over the visage. Small nose, straight, no upturn at the end.

I hope it's right, Nalia.

Smooth.

Work faster. Make it come faster.

Carve.

Smooth…

She stepped back from the reconstruction and closed her eyes.

"Is it enough, Nalia?" she whispered. "It's the best I can do."

The final touch.

Her eyes opened and she turned to the table and opened her eye case.

"May I do it?"

She looked up to see Montalvo standing beside her.

He was looking down at the glass eyes in the case. "May I?"

She nodded jerkily. "If you like."

He took two brown eyes from the case. "Thank you." He carefully put the brown eyes in the empty sockets. "And to answer your question." His voice was unsteady. "It's more than enough. It's Nalia."

"I felt it was. Sometimes I have no idea. But this time I felt sure." She gazed at the reconstruction. "She's very beautiful. I wasn't sure about the mouth…"

"I know. You had to go back to it."

"How long have you been here?"

"Hours." He didn't take his gaze from the skull. "First I found it fascinating. Then I began to be drawn into the whirlpool."

"Whirlpool?"

"Memories. I imagine I've relived every moment Nalia and I spent together during those last hours." He reached out and touched Nalia's cheek with infinitely gentle fingertips. "I couldn't say good-bye to her until I said hello, welcome back into my world."

"I can understand that."

"I know you can." His eyes were glittering with moisture as he stepped back from the dais. "And now that I've said it, it hurts like hell."

"Closure doesn't come overnight."

"It won't come for me at all until I make sure Diaz is dead and that kingdom he's set up explodes into a thousand pieces." He started to turn away. "And I'd better start working on making that happen."

"Not until I'm finished with her."

"Finished?" He stopped to look at Eve. "She couldn't be more finished. It's Nalia."

"The actual sculpting is finished but I have to photograph the reconstruction, put it on the computer, and compare it to photographs of Nalia. I need those photographs from you."

He frowned. "All that's not necessary. I have what I want."

"But I don't have what I want. I do every job with the same thoroughness. I'm a professional and I won't cheat Nalia or myself by skimping. Give me those photos."

He hesitated and then went to the desk, unlocked a bottom drawer, and pulled out a large envelope. "Letters. Photos. Anything else?"

"I'll see." She opened the envelope and drew out the photos. They were snapshots of a young woman in her twenties. One photo showed her in a skirt and blouse sitting at a table in a bar. In another she was dressed in pants and khaki shirt and smiling mischievously into the camera. The woman was undoubtedly the Nalia of the reconstruction. She looked so vital and alive that Eve could almost expect to see her walk out of the photo. "No, that's all I need."