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was nothing but a crude distortion of the truth.” He paused long enough to hear his own anger, then looked down, shook his head and let out a long breath. “I’m hungry.”
    Carly stared at him. “You’re hungry ? What does hunger have to do with anything?”
    He looked around, then headed for the sofa to lift the coat she’d dropped earlier. “I can’t think straight on an empty stomach. Let’s go get a snack.”
    “We can’t do that, Sam. Ellen is sure to be sitting home waiting for you. She’s probably spent the afternoon planning dinner.”
    For the first time since he arrived, Sam smiled broadly. “You’ve never met Ellen or you wouldn’t worry. Ellen is the perfect deputy marshal’s wife. She knows never to expect me unless I call.”
    To Carly it sounded awful. She and Matt had prized their dinners precisely because their days were so busy and apart. “How does she stand it?”
    He grinned then. “My charm. She’s a sucker for my charm.” He held the coat for her. “Come on, lady. We’ve got some talking to do.” Had it been anyone else, Carly would have steadfastly refused. With Sam, though, she felt safe on every level.
    Once in his car, they headed toward a deli on the fringe of the Square. There, over corned-beef sandwiches and beer, they very sanely discussed the program she’d watched. “It only spoke of the failures, Carly, and those are a ridiculously small percentage of the whole. Sure, there have been thugs who’ve been brought into the program, who theoretically then have a clean slate to launch a second lifetime of crime; there have been misjudgments here and there. In most cases though, it’s been decided that the importance of the testimony outweighed the potential risk.”
    “I know, Sam, but that wasn’t what—”
    “Bothered you most?” When she nodded, he grimaced. “That’s what I thought.” He took a long swig of his beer.
    “I mean, you have to admit that hearing about cases where the person supposedly under protection is discovered and—and killed—isn’t terribly encouraging.”
    “But look at those cases, Carly. Those were situations where the witness was a crook himself, where he had a whole army of enemies. And the one most important thing that bastard Frank failed to point out was that in every one of those cases, the witness was himself responsible for his cover being blown. Think about it.” He spoke softly, a gentle urgency in his voice. “Here you are. You’ve got an entire background fabricated for you—birth certificate, social security number, school and employment records, even a marriage certificate and phony newspaper clippings of your husband’s death. We’ve given you a past that parallels the truth enough for you to feel comfortable with it. Names, dates, places may have been altered, but as Carly Quinn, you’re a complete, believable individual. And there’s no way, no way that anyone can connect Carly Quinn to Robyn Hart. In fact, wasn’t that the main thrust of Frank’s argument? In the few cases he chose to explore, when the local authorities would arrest our witnesses on suspicion of a crime, they were unable to get so much as a fingerprint ID from the FBI. These were police officers , unable to break through the cover.” He straightened and offered a half smile of encouragement. “In some situations, where local police don’t know and can’t learn that they have a dangerous person in their midst, it may be counterproductive. In your situation, it should be comforting. No one can find out who you are. Not Nick Barber. Not Gary Culbert. No one .”
    Carly winced at the mention of the names that had brought terror to her life, then reflected on Sam’s argument as she idly rearranged the potato salad on her plate. Finally, setting down her fork, she looked up. “I suppose,” she murmured, but her skepticism lingered. “It’s just that I get so frightened at times.”
    “Is that what happened this afternoon?”
    Puzzled