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plus a few
unlikelies. And I've also put down the numbers of Karin and Wade,
in case you've lost them. Karin can come anytime, Wade, up until
six in the morning."
    "What about Phyllis?"
    "She's in N'Orleans this week, y'all,"
he drawled. "Playin' with the bubbas and all them good
ol' boys, hot damn."
    "Have a good time, Jon," said Lee.
    "You too, darlin'."
    The house seemed to expand when he left, and suddenly, unexpectedly,
Kate was aware of a touch, just a faint brush of unease at being alone
with Lee. She wondered at it, wondered if Lee felt it, and decided that
she couldn't have or she would say something.
    "I feel like my mother has just left me alone in the house with a girlfriend," Lee said.
    "I was just thinking how quiet it was."
    Without taking her eyes from Kate's, Lee reached down and
freed the brakes on her chair, backed and maneuvered to where Kate sat,
laid her hand on the back of Kate's neck, and kissed her, long
and slow. She then backed away again and returned to her place, leaving
Kate flushed, short of breath, and laughing.
    "Necking while Mom's away," Kate commented.
    "Different from having her in the next room."
    "I'm sure Jon would love it if you started calling him Mom."
    "You still don't like him, do you?"
    "I like him well enough." That Kate detested having any
person other than Lee in the house, no matter how easy to live with,
was a fact both unavoidable and best not talked about.
    "You don't trust him."
    "With you, with the house, I believe he is a thoroughly
responsible and trustworthy person," Kate said carefully.
"He is absolutely ideal as a caregiver for you, and I think
we're very, very lucky to have him. If there's anything
about him I don't trust, it's his motives. He's a
blessing from heaven, he works cheap, he even knows when to disappear,
but I can't help having a niggling suspicion that we're
going to have to pay for it somehow in the end."
    "Transference with a vengeance," Lee agreed.
"Every therapist's nightmare, a client who gets his foot in
the door. However, I think Jon Sampson's a much more balanced
individual than he appears. He plays up the 'patient turned
powerful doctor' role in order to defuse it, and he is aware that
one of his motives in taking the job was his lingering guilt at having
a part, however minor, in my being shot. He's clearly focused
both on his sense of responsibility for what happened to me and on how
invalid the guilt is, and he's working on it. It's a
complex relationship, but I still don't think I was wrong to
allow it."
    "You're probably right. I just get suspicious when
someone wants to ingratiate himself." Kate paused, remembering
Beatrice Jankowski's similar description of the dead man John.
Odd, the coincidence in names, although come to think of it Jon's
name had been chosen to replace the hated Marvin his parents had
blessed him with. Though what was to say John was not an alias, as
well? Beatrice thought so. Another thing to ask Brother Erasmus
tomorrow, if she found him. She put the forkful in her mouth and looked
up, to see Lee gazing at her with an odd, crooked smile on her face.
    "What?"
    "You really are back into it, aren't you?" Lee said.
    "Back into what?"
    "You know what I'm talking about. You were suddenly miles away, thinking about the case."
    "Was I? Sorry. Funny, Al said pretty much the same thing
today. I guess you're right. This case is different.
It's... interesting. Could you push the salad over
here?"
    Silence, and the sounds of fork and plate, and then Lee spoke, deliberately.
    "For a while there, I thought you might quit."
    "What, resign? From the department?"
    "You've been hanging by a thread for months, and I got
the distinct impression that going back into partnership with Al was a
final trial to prove to yourself how much you hated the job."
    "I don't hate the job."
    "Kate, you've been a basket case. You'd hate any job that did that to you."
    "Don't exaggerate."
    "It's true. You've been a classic example of
posttraumatic