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Helen didn't trust him. There were any number of reasons for her not to, including the basic fact that when Abramowitz called her to ask about Billy Moretti he'd insisted he had no one named Rafferty working for him.

She'd accepted that information with a sick feeling of doom. She didn't usually make mistakes like that, mistakes of trust. She'd thought Billy Moretti was worth another chance. She thought James Rafferty was one of the good guys. Instead he turned out to be a liar.

It still couldn't shake the basic fact that she trusted him. Maybe not to tell her the truth, but to do the right thing.

She hadn't seen the car he said was about to run her down—for all she knew he might have made that up, too. But none of it made sense. He had what he wanted—Billy Moretti was walking around free, she'd dropped the charges and there was no way she could bring them up again, not and keep her credibility.

So why, when she'd gotten the feeling he was walking out of her life, had he returned to literally sweep her off her feet? Why had he taken her to that coffee shop and plied her with tea and toast, why had he driven her home, why was he sitting in her apartment drinking the worst coffee known to man and watching her out of wary eyes, obviously deciding which lie to try next?

And what was even more troubling to her was why had she let him?

Instincts, again. Those irrational, damnable things that had gotten her into more trouble in her life, her instincts were telling her to trust this man. Not his words, which were mostly a bunch of flattery, blather and outright lies. But to trust him.

And despite what her common sense told her, she did.

"What do you mean, who am I?" he said, stalling for time, fiddling with his cigarette. "I told you..."

"You told me a pack of lies. Abramowitz has never heard of you."

He didn't look the slightest bit abashed. "Maybe he's got a short memory."

"Abramowitz has a mind like a steel trap. You lied to me, Rafferty. You aren't a lawyer."

"I had a year of law school," he said, and she was so bemused by his nonchalance that she didn't tell him to put out the cigarette.

"What law school?"

"Princeton."

"Princeton doesn't have a law school."

Rafferty shrugged. "Actually it was prelaw, and it was at Harvard."

"You don't look like a Harvard man."

He had the gall to smile at her, his dark eyes crinkling. "If you aren't going to believe me, why bother asking?" He leaned back against her shabby, overstuffed sofa, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

She stood staring at him, unwilling to sit while she cross-examined him. To sit would be to accept his presence, and she wasn't ready to do that, any more than she was ready to send him on his way. "Why did you lie to me?"

"I didn't actually lie to you. You jumped to a number of conclusions, and I went along with them. It seemed easier than trying to set you straight."

"Do you always do things the easy way?" she asked, watching him.

"I try," he said, and that aura of stillness invaded the apartment. "Sit down, Helen, and I'll answer your questions. Truthfully."

"You'll answer my questions, and then you'll leave," she said, using the cool, self-controlled voice that had managed to convince dozens of defense lawyers and any number of jurors. "And I prefer to stand."

It didn't fool Rafferty. "Sit down," he said, in a quiet, deadly voice.

Helen sat.

She almost wished she had a cup of that horrible coffee for herself. Anything to keep her busy, to occupy her while she studied him. As it was, there was nothing she could look at but him, with his dark, slightly mocking eyes and distant, handsome face. “I presume you're some friend of Billy Moretti's, and you flew in to see whether you could get him off." She couldn't stand the intensity of his eyes. His old-fashioned silk tie seemed a safer place to look.

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Jumping to conclusions. Trust me, I didn't fly in. No wings."

"Very funny," Helen said, steeling herself to meet his gaze. "Then why don't you tell me the truth?"

"No problem," he said. "You got an ashtray?"

She hadn't even realized he'd been polluting her smoke-free apartment. "Use your saucer," she said sharply.

"Aren't you going to tell me not to smoke?"

He read her that easily. "I doubt if it would do any good," she replied.

"I don't know. If you asked real nice..."

"Put out the damned cigarette and don't smoke," Helen snapped.

He smiled at her, without a trace of mockery. "That's better. I like a little honesty myself." He stubbed out the cigarette, and she noticed his hands again. Long, deft fingers, beautiful hands. With no rings. "You're right, I'm an old friend of Billy's. His wife got in touch with me when he got into trouble. You knew as well as I did that he was set up—Billy Moretti is one of nature's good guys. He didn't deserve to take a fall for a creep like Morris."

"Is that what he told you? Did Morris force him? Will he testify?" she asked eagerly, forgetting her distrust, leaning closer in her chair.

"No."

"No, what?"

"No to everything. You don't understand the code, counselor. He would have gone to Joliet, his baby would be born without a father, his wife and child would be on welfare or maybe even the streets before he'd rat on a brother. How long have you been a lawyer?"

"Five years, and I understand..."

"You don't understand a goddamned thing. You're from the other side, lady. I saw that picture in your office - that family portrait of Cops, Incorporated. We speak a different language, come from a different world. Billy and I are a different race, a different time...." He let it trail off, as if surprised at himself.

"You and Billy don't strike me as having that much in common," she said.

He just looked at her from across the room. "That goes to show how much you know."

"You must be at least ten years older than he is. You're from an Ivy League background, I'll believe that much, and I know Billy's rap sheet."

"We have other things in common."

She felt a little shiver slip down her spine at his deep, implacable voice. She wasn't sure if she liked his voice or not. There was no question that it had an astonishing effect on her, turning her bones to jelly. He wasn't the kind of man she was used to. She was used to the boisterous, emotional outbursts of her rough and ready family. She was used to the gentlemanly tactics of her occasional dates. She was used to the camaraderie of the men at work. She wasn't used to whatever it was Rafferty represented.

"I just want you to explain to me..." she began, when she was interrupted by the shrill ring of her telephone. She ignored it. "...explain to me..." she continued.

"Aren't you going to get the phone?"

"I'll let the answering machine do it."

He stared at her with a blank look, as if she'd been speaking Japanese. "Answering machine?"

She might have almost thought he didn't know what an answering machine was. Impossible, of course, unless he'd just flown in from Mars. "Don't try to distract me, Rafferty, I'm on to you," she snapped.

"I doubt it."

"Just tell me..." She stopped as the machine clicked on, and a familiar voice sounded from the speaker.

"Er, Ms. Emerson, this is Billy Moretti. I... er...was just wondering..."

With a weary sigh Helen picked up the receiver. "I'm here, Billy," she said. "I expect you're looking for Rafferty. Hold on a minute."

"He's there?" There was no mistaking the shock in Billy's voice.

"He's here." She handed the phone to Rafferty. "I'll give you and your 'client' some privacy," she said, rising and heading for the bathroom. The low murmur of voices followed her.

As a matter of fact, she was the one who needed the privacy. As she closed the door of the huge, ornate bathroom behind her, shutting out the sound of conversation, she turned to look at herself in the gilded three-paneled mirror that Crystal had loved.

She barely recognized herself. It was no wonder— she'd survived a flying tackle by the deceptively strong man now lounging on her sofa. Her reddish-brown hair was a wild tangle, her face was pale and her eyes looked huge and a little shocked. She pulled off her glasses, splashed water on her skin and shook her head, trying to shake some sense back into her disordered brain. She needed to get that lying interloper out of her apartment, out of her life. It was too late to do anything about Billy Moretti, but  if she'd made a mistake he was bound to come her way again soon enough.

The problem was, she didn't want to get rid of Rafferty. She wanted to listen to his raspy voice, watch his stillness, stare at his distant, handsome face. God, she wanted to do more than that. She wanted to touch him.

She slapped herself. The shock of it didn't do any good; she simply stared back at her reflection defiantly. "Get a hold of yourself, Emerson," she muttered. "You're a professional." She started to pin her hair back in a tidy little bun, but her hands were uncharacteristically clumsy. She gave up, shaking it free, hoping her glasses would restore her equilibrium. She really only needed them for reading, but she used them at other times in the vain hope they'd give her an air of cool authority. They didn't.

She had a whole box of makeup beside the sink, makeup she seldom bothered to use. She glanced up at her reflection. It must be the aftereffects of the near accident, she told herself. She needed a touch of rouge to counteract the paleness of her skin. She needed mascara to make her eyes seem less lost. She needed lipstick to give her face color.

She couldn't quite come up with an excuse for the perfume, and she stopped trying, opening the door to the bathroom and hearing nothing but silence from the living room.

Maybe he'd left. Maybe she'd never see him again. It would be the best thing possible, but she couldn't control the knot of dread curling in the bottom of her stomach as she made herself move into the living room.

Any more than she could control her brilliant smile when she saw him, still stretched out on her sofa, staring at the blank television with complete fascination.

"It's even more interesting when you turn it on," she said.

He glanced up at her, about to speak, when his gaze narrowed, and that aura of stillness increased, augmented by the silence. "Very nice," he said, looking at her face.

She hadn't needed the blusher. Her own natural color rose when she realized how transparent she was. She knew she ought to ignore his comment, but she couldn't. "I looked like a ghost," she said in an offhand explanation.

There was a wry tinge to his smile. "Not like any I've been acquainted with." Before she could reply he rose, walking across the room to her, and she noticed as she had before that peculiar, stalking grace of him. "We've been invited to dinner. I accepted for both of us."

She stared up at him in numb surprise. "Excuse me?"

"You're excused. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. What I meant was..."

"What you meant, Helen," Rafferty said easily, "was how dare I accept a dinner invitation for you, when I'm allegedly here under false pretenses, I've lied to you and you probably wish I was in Hades right now."

"Hades?" For a moment she was confused.

"Hell."

"Don't swear."

"I was giving you a geographical location, not a curse. Billy wants us to come for a spaghetti dinner tonight. I told him we would. I figured you'd want to see for yourself that you made the right decision in letting him go. See how rehabilitated he is. Am I right?"

He was giving her the perfect excuse, and he knew it. He probably knew she didn't want him to leave, to disappear from her life. He was a man who knew far too much about women, and what kind of effect he had on them. But he didn't know what kind of woman she was, that she wasn't comfortable with casual relationships and friendly sex.

Or did he? He'd somehow managed to know she was the only twenty-five year old virgin in the city of Chicago.  "You're right," she said.

"Then you'll go with me?"

"What time do you want to pick me up?"

His eyes crinkled in amusement. "You mean you're willing to trust my driving again?"

"I survived once—I imagine I can survive anything."

"The fact of the matter is, Helen, that I don't have a car. We might as well use yours."

"Then I'll pick you up. Where are you staying?" He was standing too close to her. Not that his nearness was threatening, or impolite. It was just... disturbing.

He didn't look the slightest bit abashed. "That's another problem. I haven't gotten a hotel yet.  I just arrived in town when I heard about Billy and I've been too busy dealing with you to find a hotel." He glanced at his watch, and Helen noticed absently that it was a beautiful antique—the kind her Irish grandfather had owned. "It's early afternoon now, and Billy and Mary want us by six. Why don't I just spend the afternoon here?"

Was she that pitifully obvious? She wanted him to stay, God, she wanted him to stay forever if she was going to be truthful with herself. It was irrational, it was embarrassing, but it was the uncomfortable truth.  As one final sop to her pride she tried to drag up excuses. "I have work to do,'' she said. “I brought home files..."

"I won't interfere. I'll just sit and watch TV."

"There's nothing on but soap operas."

"I love soap operas."

"I need to take a nap." The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished she could call them back. There was an unmistakable gleam in his eye, but he wisely said nothing, merely smiled faintly.

“I’ll keep the sound turned down."

She was crazy to fight it. She'd decided to trust him, this man who'd lied to her, who'd come to her under false pretenses, whose best friend was a convicted felon, and her common sense wasn't making a dent in that level of trust. She wanted him there, even if it was dangerously foolish on her part.

"All right," she said, unable to fight it any longer. "You can use the VCR if you'd rather watch movies."

"You'll have to show me how. I've never used one."

"Rafferty, there is no human being in the city of Chicago who can't use a VCR," she said, certain he was kidding. He just stood there, looking at her, and she found she believed him.

"All right, all right," she said, moving past him, skirting him carefully, not wanting to touch him. Simply because she wanted to touch him. "What do you want to see? I've got slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, gangster movies, lots of Alfred Hitchcock, musicals, you name it."

"Anything but gangster movies."

She smiled wryly. "Now I would have thought that would be just up your alley."

"I'm not in the mood. Give me something to make me laugh."

"How about the Marx Brothers?"

"Did they end up being in the movies?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Rafferty," she said, finding Duck Soup and pushing it into the VCR.

"Aren't you going to watch it with me?" he asked, as she started past him.

She wanted to go back and hide in the bathroom, wash the makeup off her face. She wanted to hole up in her bedroom, concentrating on her files and not on the six feet plus of disturbing male flesh that had somehow invaded her life.

"Of course," she said, taking the armchair that was well away from the far more comfortable sofa.

His smile was faintly knowing as he returned to the couch, stretching out on it. "Hey, Helen," he said softly as the credits flickered on the huge television set.

"What?" she said, concentrating fiercely on a movie she'd seen no less than thirty-seven times.

"I like your perfume."

Ms. Helen Emerson was too damned easy, Rafferty thought. It made him feel guilty, a completely ridiculous emotion, given that his lies and subterfuge were to protect her, at no little cost to his own plans for forty-eight hours of pleasure.

But if she accepted him as easily, as innocently, as quickly as she had, even knowing he'd lied to her about Abramowitz and God knows what else, what possible match could she be for a psychopathic manipulator like Ricky Drago?

He no longer regretted his decision. Sure, he regretted the loss of some anonymous woman's clever body wrapped around his, but when he tried to summon up the image all he could see was Helen's pale face and huge, brown eyes.

Not that he was going to have her wrapped around him, or look down to see her face, her hair spread out against a white pillow, her eyes glazed and her mouth...

He shifted on the sofa. She was watching the Marx Brothers as if they were the sermon on the mount, but she wasn't laughing. Neither was he.

Why couldn't Helen Emerson be someone a little looser, a little more casual, a little more get-at-able? Why couldn't he simply seduce her and spend the rest of his forty-eight hours in her bed, keeping her safe? It was the obvious solution, and with anyone else he'd at least try it before moving on to other things.

But he wasn't going to try it with Ms. Emerson. It would be a waste of time. She might be attracted to him, and he knew women well enough to recognize that she was, but she was also a virgin, or damned close to one. She wasn't ready to go to bed with a stranger. She wasn't ready to go to bed with anyone at all.

And when she was, it wouldn't be any of his business. He'd be off in some sort of limbo, while some other man was stripping off those glasses, threading his fingers through her thick, silky hair and tilting her face back to kiss....

"Don't you like the couch?" Her cool voice startled him as he shifted once more.

"Why do you ask?"

"You keep thrashing around on it. I've always found it very comfortable."

"Then why aren't you sitting here? It's a big couch."

She shook her head with a small smile, not rising to the challenge, and his opinion of her intelligence, already high, increased. "I don't think that would be a very wise idea, Rafferty. It's not that big."

"Big enough." If he could get her to sit next to him maybe the next step would be that much easier. Hell, he should have asked for something a little more erotic than Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont. Maybe she had something hot and steamy among those black boxes she called videos. Not that he needed any stimulation—just smelling that damned, faint perfume she'd put on was trigger enough. He had to be going out of his head, having erotic fantasies about a woman who was everything foreign to a man like him. A state prosecutor, a virgin, a woman from a family of cops besides. Hell, the fact that they were from different time periods was almost a minor issue.

He liked blondes, he reminded himself. Women who knew how to have a good time without expecting anything but pleasure. He liked women who were stacked, women who giggled, women who drank and smoked and didn't mind bending a law or two here and there. Not a virgin pledged to uphold it.

So why was he practically shaking with the ache to touch her? Why did he want her more than he could remember wanting anyone in his life, including the late great Crystal Latour?

It was a short movie. She picked up another, smaller black box and pointed it toward the television, the movie flicked off, and the screen was filled with a noisy ad for underarm protection, whatever the hell that was. Why did people need to protect their armpits?

"You really like soap operas?" she asked.

"I like everything on TV," he replied, trying to keep from staring at the black piece of plastic in her hand.

"This one is supposed to be good." She tossed the little box to him, and he caught it, staring at the little buttons in fascination. A moment later the show came back on and he couldn't have asked for anything better.

As far as he could tell, neither of the people on TV had a stitch of clothing on. The long-haired man was lying on top of the woman, a sheet pulled discreetly over his hips, and he was kissing her with an enthusiasm Rafferty found commendable, if a little unnecessary at that stage of the game. They were both moaning, and the music in the background was fairly torrid as well.

"You want to change the channel, Rafferty?" Helen said in a strangled voice.

He turned to look at her, keeping his gaze innocent. "Why?"

She was blushing again, and he wondered how anyone could be so innocent in a world that had grown astonishingly sordid in the past sixty or so years. "Well," she managed to say, "since we're not familiar with this particular soap then we don't have any emotional involvement with the characters, so what they're doing isn't particularly interesting."

"I wouldn't say that," Rafferty said critically, as the man began to move down the woman's body.

"Change the channel."

He gave her a charming, helpless smile. "I don't know how this thing works," he said, holding up the black keypad.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" She jumped up and pushed a button on the oversize television, only to have the screen filled with still another couple, this pair fully dressed, sinking onto a sandy beach.

She pushed the button again, and a game show appeared, full of noise and flashing lights and cheering crowds. Rafferty glanced at her flushed face and considered seeing whether he could make the little black box work, then decided against it. She was still capable of kicking him out.

"You don't like love scenes?" he asked comfortably enough, setting the machine down on the cluttered coffee table.

"That's not it."

"You don't like sex, then?"

"That's not it, either."

"You do like sex?" He couldn't resist teasing her, even knowing it was dangerous.

"Rafferty..." Her voice carried just enough warning. "I'm going to work in my room. You can watch anything you please. We'll have to figure out how much time it takes to get to the Morettis..."

"Fifteen minutes. I know a shortcut."

She stared at him for a moment. "For someone who doesn't spend much time in Chicago you certainly seem to know your way around."

“Not really. They keep changing the streets, making them one-way when it's not the way I want to go. But I get around okay. I'm a good driver."

"You're atrocious," she said flatly. "I'll be ready to go by five-thirty. I believe in being prompt."

"Yes, ma'am."

"In the meantime, I have the yellow pages by the phone. You might make a few calls and find yourself a place to stay."

"Yes, ma'am," he said again, deliberately mocking her.

She walked out of the room without a word. A moment later he heard the bedroom door shut over the noise of the game show. He lounged on the sofa, not moving, as he thought about her.

With any luck he'd have to go wake her up. With any luck neither of them would leave that bed. Billy would understand. He'd been shocked as hell to find Rafferty there with her, and he'd taken Rafferty's terse account of Drago's attempt with both fear and fury. "You can't leave her, Rafferty. Not until we do something about the situation."

"I'm not about to leave her, Billy. Not until I have to."

But both of them knew when that moment would come. By the dawn of February 15.