"Go, go, go!" Audie screamed a few moments later as her teammate slashed the ball through a tangle of legs and into the net.

"Yes!" Audie punched her fist into the air and jumped into the middle of a cluster of women hanging on one another like monkeys. Quinn watched Audie's hair fall out of its tether as she bounced around on a teammate's back.

He stepped farther from the sidelines and tried to put some distance between himself and Autumn Adams.

Who the hell was this woman? How could he reconcile what he'd seen and heard today with the public persona of Homey Helen, the world-famous household hints columnist?

Quinn had to laugh. He knew too well how whacked-out celebrities could be. For the last few years, he'd been working mostly celebrity cases out of District 18, which encompassed Chicago 's Gold Coast, Michigan Avenue, and the ultrachic towers of black glass and steel along Lake Michigan. Talk show queens lived there, as did professional athletes, politicians, and film stars, and he'd handled stalking or harassment cases on a bunch of them.

But compared to Autumn Adams, most other famous types seemed pretty easy to peg.

True, she wasn't the original Homey Helen, but she had taken over everything the job entailed, hadn't she? She still toured all over the world. She still did the television segment. She still wrote the column. So how was it that she was nothing like her image?

Quinn sighed. It had to be a real bitch to pretend you were someone you weren't, day after day.

And then he smiled to himself. God, he loved the way his brain worked! No wonder he'd made detective at the age of twenty-nine.

Obviously, Autumn Adams was sending those notes to herself. If she didn't enjoy doing the column, if the job cramped her style, which it clearly did, then these letters would be a way to bow out without anyone accusing her of failure.

He had to give the woman credit-it was certainly worth a try. Too bad he was so good at his job.

Autumn was walking toward him, and he watched her lift the front of her jersey to wipe her sweaty face, exposing a stretch of flat, smooth, and golden skin.

She smiled up at him. "I could really use a beer. How about you?"

Quinn pushed aside the starched cuff of his oxford shirt and checked his watch. So she wanted to play with him a little, did she? He was up for that. He grinned at her. "Sure. Why not?"

"Can we go to my regular watering hole?"

"Sure."

"Great. That would be Field Box Seats Two-oh-five and Two-oh-six, Gate D, Section One-thirty-four, along the first base line. The game starts in ten minutes."

Stacey Quinn stopped dead and stared at the pretty, flushed face and the toffee-brown eyes wide with a question. Homey Helen had just asked him for a date-to a Cubs game!

"I'm not sure I can do that, Audie."

Her face froze in a smile. "Why not? Are you still on duty? Or aren't you allowed to go to sporting events with taxpaying citizens?" Her smile suddenly collapsed and she shook her head. "Whoops. You've got a wife or girlfriend to go home to."

He kept grinning. "No wife. No girlfriend. I'm off duty. And yes, I'm allowed to accept your offer."

Her brows knit together. "Then what's the-"

"I'm a White Sox fan, Miss Adams, born and bred."

"Oh, is that all?" She slipped her arm through his and pulled him to a walk beside her. "It'll be our little secret then."

Stacey Quinn tried to keep his head down as much as he could. There were television cameras tucked away all over the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, and there was no way he could allow his mug to end up on television. If his father and brothers ever found out he had gone to a Cubs game, his life would be barely worth living.

"Do you want a hot dog?" Audie tapped his knee. "I'm starving."

"Sure, I'll go to the-"

Audie suddenly stood up, brought a thumb and middle finger against her tongue, and let a piercing whistle rip through the ballpark. "Yo! Hot dog here!"

The kid with the metal box of steaming Eckridge red hots caught her eye and nodded. He was on his way, taking two steps at a time to get to her.

This was too much. Quinn let his head fall into his hand and starting laughing for real now. Martha Stewart, Carmen Electra, and what else? Athlete. Beer drinker. Whistler. A sense of humor and a sharp, albeit criminally inclined, mind.

He should probably just get down on his knees now, in the middle of the second inning, and ask her to be the mother of his children.

She took out a wad of bills from some hidden interior pocket of her shorts and began to pay for the hot dogs.

"I've got this," Quinn said, standing and pushing her hand away. He gave the kid a ten-dollar bill and handed her one of the warm bundles.

Audie stood very still, feeling the blood thump in her veins. "You got the beers. I should get the hot dogs."

Quinn sat down with a shrug and began squeezing out a neat crosshatched layer of mustard along the inside of the bun. "I got it."

Audie collapsed in her seat and left the foil-wrapped package untouched in her lap. She'd suddenly lost her appetite.

"We're not dating, Detective. I just wanted to split the costs."

"You don't have to."

She laughed a little. "I know I don't have to-but I want to!" She stared at him, incredulous. "I'm the one who invited you to come, and I can pay for anything I choose."

Quinn raised the hot dog and bun to his mouth and took a large, but tidy, bite. He looked out on the emerald green grass and watched the Padres take the field. He could hardly believe he was sitting in a National League park, watching a National League game. He'd probably go to hell for this.

"Are you listening to me?" Audie whacked him in the shoulder.

Quinn turned slowly toward her, one eyebrow arched high in surprise as he looked at his arm and then at her. "That's assaulting an officer," he said calmly. "I might be forced to use my handcuffs on you."

Audie rolled her eyes. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. She just wanted company for the game, and he was extremely cute. And they did need to talk. But it was clear he was the kind of man she'd clash with on a regular basis. This was a mistake.

"Detective. I can see that you're a wildly progressive man, so it must have occurred to you that I might enjoy paying for half of our purchases this evening, that I might even prefer it."

Quinn took another bite, then dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He reached for the large plastic cup of Old Style beer below his seat and took a gulp. "Not really."

He watched absently as Sammy Sosa hit a little hopper over the head of the second baseman for a single. It seemed everyone was on their feet cheering but them.

Audie glared at him-what a jerk this Stacey Quinn was! She unwrapped her hot dog and ate in silence as the Cubs ended the inning with Sosa on base. A wasted hit. A wasted evening.

"I'm sorry."

Audie's eyes popped and she stared in disbelief at the detective, a mouthful of hot dog now lodged in her throat. Nothing-absolutely nothing-would have surprised her more.

"They're your season tickets, so I thought I should pay for everything else," he said. "I didn't mean anything by it."

She blinked. My God, he was a fine-looking man, but then, she'd always found men at their most attractive during an apology.

Audie was about to say something nice to him when he smiled wickedly and added, "So how long did you plan to let me squirm?"

"Huh?"

"When were you going to admit you wrote those letters yourself?"

A hot and electric shiver ran up Audie's spine and she wrestled for command of her voice. "What are you talking about?"

"The letters. You wrote them and mailed them to yourself to give you an out."