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forced herself to look at Damon. She and Damon had met the year Micky joined the force. Micky had to testify in a murder case and Damon, as a psychologist, was called on as an expert witness for thedefense. Even though they were on opposite sides of the fence, initially Micky and Damon had been attracted to each other. But they quickly realized that their personalities were too different. Damon was driven, goal oriented, and ambitious, while Micky tended to be more introspective and undecided about any future beyond her job.
    Still, Damon had been the person she turned to when she began having nightmares about her parent's death again. Damon had treated her confidentially and with the kindness of a friend, not a doctor. The nightmares became fewer. Less intense.
    She told him they were gone.
    Damon had made a name for himself after that, working with severely disturbed patients. Micky sometimes wondered if her own past ever intruded on his diagnoses. But she and Damon had a long-standing pact.
    Damon never mentioned her past.
    His days of analyzing her were over.
    “I don't have to understand,” said Damon. “It's me. Remember?”
    “I haven't seen you in a while,” she said, at last.
    “Been traveling again,” he said.
    “Doing?”
    “Working with severely disturbed patients mostly.” His frown was more in his eyes than on his lips. Damon was eight years older than her. But she had never noticed his age before.
    “That's me,” said Micky.
    “They haven't locked you up yet.”
    “Maybe they should.”
    Silence hung over them.
    “The patients inside are there for a reason, Micky. Believe me, you don't belong there.” His voice was cold, withdrawn. His face suddenly ashen.
    “What's the matter, Damon?”
    “A lot of things happened, Mick. None of them good. When you do the kind of work I do you start to get a little hard, that's all.”
    “You were never hard.”
    “People get hurt when they're locked up. More than they already were. Let's talk about you.”
    “Let's not.”
    “You're not going to get crazy on me, are you?”
    “I thought you head doctors didn't like that word.”
    “We use it among friends.” He tried smiling again.
    A bedpan hit the floor in the corridor.
    Jim glanced in, shaking his head. He closed the door.
    “I can't think straight, Damon.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “I'm not going to kill myself.”
    “Promise?”
    He leaned down until she had to look directly into his eyes. His face was more chiseled than she remembered it, cheekbones closer to the surface. But it looked good on him. He was getting better with age.
    “Promise?” he repeated.
    “I promise.”
    “Good. Want something to drink? There's some water.” He nodded toward the blue-plastic pitcher.
    She shook her head. “Are you going to keep working with your patients?”
    “I thought we were talking about you.”
    “I'm changing the subject.”
    “I don't have patients, per se. I consult. I have consultations. One of them was about a man named Melrose, in Cordelia, Mississippi. He tried to commit suicide with a dinner spoon.”
    She winced.
    “That was the good one,” he said.
    “There were worse?”
    “Vegler.”
    “Oh, my God,” she said. Martin Vegler had started splashing the headlines across the country three months ago. He was a quiet, unassuming man who lived in a suburb of Chicago. None of his neighbors knew him at all but they seemed genuinely surprised to discover that the innocent-looking little guy had twenty-two bodies neatly buried beneath his crawl space.
    “How did you end up with him?”
    “I was hired by his attorneys.”
    She frowned. “To say he was insane? So he could get off?”
    “Basically.”
    “And did you?”
    “I quit.”
    “Good.”
    “It takes something out of you. Just being around someone like Vegler.” He poured himself a plastic cup of water and took his time drinking.
    “I wish you wouldn't work with people like that. You aren't the kind of person who can