Alan watched Brig walk Phoebe next door. He watched the police leaving, watched FBI agents disappearing behind doors and into cars. It’s going to be okay, he told himself. She’ll be fine. She has two FBI agents with her. She’s safe. Michael may try to get her, but he isn’t going to get past these people.

But he was uneasy.

Of course he was. She was this delicate little woman with a bad knee, and if the bastard got through to her, she wasn’t likely to be able to fight him off a second time.

Michael Schaeffer wasn’t going to get through to her. That was the part of this that Alan had to hang on to. The FBI had the bastard. They knew where he’d been hiding, and no doubt were backtracking him from his lease. They knew how he’d been doing the things to her that he’d been doing...

God! Alan just about couldn’t even let himself consider that. Her ex-husband had actually been in the same room with her. While she was drugged and helpless. At least once. Maybe more than once. Chick had dragged Alan to Phoebe’s front door not because Phoebe was having a nightmare but because that monster had been in there with her. He could have done anything to her right then. But he hadn’t.

Michael liked pain, she’d told him. Fear. And he liked being the smartest, outwitting people, leaving them baffled and confused. He liked winning, showing off, making the other guys look like bumblers and fools.

Alan was scared for her. Still. Dammit. He needed to do something to keep his mind off of this. Off the waiting, because the waiting was going to be the hard part. With luck it would only be a couple of hours. If it was any more than that, it was going to be like living under siege.

He didn’t want to think about that.

He called the hospital ER. He got one of the nurses. Had her give him to Morrie.

“How is it tonight?”

“Not bad so far,” Morrie said. “You feeling any better?”

“Yeah. Phoebe’s okay. My hand hurts like hell, but it’ll heal. I’m keeping ice on it. But we have some bad things going on here. Can’t talk yet, but I’ll fill you in as soon as I can.”

“The nurses were describing your hand-smashing barf fest. Sounded pretty impressive, dude.”

“Not my finest moment. But I’ll be okay.”

“I feel better, then. So. You wanna get your ass back in here and cover your shift so I can go home?”

“No way. I have to stay here in case Phoebe needs me.”

“Is this a good time to bring up the Pussy Pool? Do I have, like, money coming to me?”

“This is not a good time. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t swamped, because I feel guilty as hell for dumping the night on you. But things could get bad here. And with the hand, I’m guessing I’ll be out for a couple of days, maybe. Have to let the swelling go down and get the fingers working together again.”

“With the horrible weather outside, it’s going to be good in here,” Morrie told him. “Barring storm-related disasters, we’ll be sitting in an empty house all night. Nobody is coming out in the middle of this shit for a three-day cold.”

“Good.”

“Later, then, man.”

The phone call had eased Alan’s mind about one of his worries. But either he was going to pace in the middle of his floor like a trapped tiger or he was going to find something to keep his hands and his mind busy. He wished he could be with Phoebe. He wished he could see her. Hold her. Touch her.

He’d been such a fool for thinking that she could be like Janet. There was never a woman alive who was less like Janet. Never a woman more warm, more passionate, more sweetly funny and mind-blowingly sexy.

But he couldn’t belittle Phoebe by saying she was just about sex.

He could see her in his future. Every night. Every day. He could see them walking hand in hand when they were old — someplace cool and green. Someplace with rolling hills that rose up to embrace them. They would have a little house that backed onto a hill, and it would have wildflower meadows around it and beautiful big old trees that bent over the house like protective parents.

And the kids would visit. And the grandkids.

He stopped.

After Chick’s death, he had sworn that he would never again have kids. That he would never again chance the heartbreak, the devastation, the loss of a whole world that having a child would make possible.

He had been afraid. He had been frozen.

And now he was looking into a fantasy future that included children and grandchildren, that would make possible loss on a scale he could not even begin to conceive.

No.

He had been right to swear off of having another family. Look at him — at this moment he was facing the possible loss of a woman he had only known a handful of days, and he was a frantic mess. He wasn’t strong enough to face a future that included marriage. He wasn’t strong enough to look at another baby and hold that baby in his arms and feel the life in her or him and know that at any instant that life could be ripped away, and with it whatever little pieces of himself he had managed to salvage from the wreckage of the last time.

He found his wallet, pulled out Chick’s lucky stone, and held it in his hand for just a moment. It was comfort. It was his talisman. The painted forget-me-not was worn and faded, but it was enough. He’d had Chick, and she was enough. She would have to be enough.

That was what he’d do.

He’d get out his tape recorder and a tape. Dictate notes on the book. He hadn’t worked on the book since the day Chick had shown up outside his office. He’d been too scattered. He would write, and he would tell the stories he remembered about her. Before they faded like the painted flower. He would put them down and rejoice in the true happiness he had once had. In the love that still lived in his heart.

Chick was enough. Had to be enough.