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married and moved out. Frost had met Deacon’s uncle, too—Morris Carruthers—who had joined them midway through the meal, and after introductions, had confirmed that the 1978 Ford LTD with the hitch would be back in service by midmorning. Finally, Frost could no longer bear the suspense and had asked Deacon’s aunt just how much she knew about Jessica Pace, and about what her nephew Andy had been up to. The woman was amazingly, almost ludicrously candid in her reply, Frost remembered. “Andy had told us Miss Pace was on the lam from the feds because some Commie moles had worked their way into the bureau and the company and were out to waste her.”
    Frost, standing under the shower spray, laughed thinking about the old woman; laughed in spite of himself, in spite of the fact that each second he spent anywhere near Jessica Pace upped immeasurably his chances of dying at an early age.
    He turned the water to straight cold and stood under it for a while. Each moment he spent near Jessica also made it that much more likely that he’d get into a shoot-out with CIA and FBI people. The thought of shooting it out with good men simply out to protect national security because they’d been told to do that made his skin crawl, despite the stinging cold spray under which he stood.
    â€œDamn it,” Frost muttered, then turned down the water and shut off the faucet, stepping out of the shower and staring at himself in the mirror. Frost looked at the scar where his left eye had been. Soon, almost a decade would have passed since he’d lost it: He laughed at the face that stared back at him—his own. He’d lost an eye, but compensated for it. Now he’d lost Bess—there was no compensating for that. While she’d been alive, it hadn’t bothered him—as much as it should have at any event—to be with other women. If their marriage had gone as planned, it would have been different, he told himself. And he knew that there’d be other women now—but it was still no compensation.
    Frost, still naked from the shower, walked across the bedroom floor and sat on the edge of the bed. When he strained, he could hear the night sounds through the half-open screened window. He stood up, walked to the window and stared out into the night. Somewhere out there, he thought—
    Frost wheeled, his left hand—closer—reaching out to the Metalifed Browning High Power on the dresser, thumbing back the hammer to full stand.
    â€œRelax—God, you’re jumpy.” Jessica Pace laughed.
    â€œYou always walk in on people?” Frost rasped, lowering the Browning’s hammer and setting the gun on the dresser.
    â€œSeems like I always see you without your clothes on.”
    â€œThat should be my line,” Frost told her.
    â€œYou know, nobody’s socked me around—no man anyway—since I knew this guy in high school.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Frost said emotionlessly. “You like being socked around?”
    â€œIt depends on who and why—you had it coming.”
    â€œNo,” Frost started to laugh. “You had it coming.”
    â€œAnyway,” she said, her fingers drifting up to the front of the white blouse she wore, starting to unbutton it. “I figured I’d come and make a peace offering.”
    â€œIs that a double entendre?” Frost asked her.
    â€œIf you want it to be. I mean, sooner or later, traveling across the country together and all, I guess I figure it’s inevitable. Don’t you?”
    â€œWell,” Frost began, “if you want an honest answer—”
    â€œDid I say that?” She smiled, the blouse all the way open now. She shrugged it off and onto the floor. She started walking toward him, across the few yards that separated them, her hands behind her back; then the bra she wore slipped forward, the straps coming from her shoulders. She tossed it onto the floor.
    â€œI